Homeless Animals Ireland

I'd like to meet:

THE TRUTH ABOUT CATS AND DOGS...

(Reproduced with kind permission from Miriam Anderson of ANVIL Ireland.)

CATS are Ireland's 'invisible' shame. Although supposedly protected under the 1911, Protection of Animals Act, there is no real protection for cats in this country. Our attitude towards these creatures is at best, superstitious, at worst, downright cruel.

There are no native wild cats in Ireland, yet terms like 'wild' and 'feral' are bandied about, both in the media and in the Oireachtas. Every domestic cat in Ireland can trace it's ancestors back to a family pet and 'wild' or 'feral' cats are no more than abandoned domestic cats or their descendants.

The government appears to be unaware as to the number of cats, abandoned or otherwise, that there are in Ireland. This has been used an excuse to do nothing about the problem for decades. While very little is known about cat numbers in Ireland, a lot of research has been done in the US.

Dr Julie Levy of the University of Florida, has carried out extensive studies and came up with a formula for estimating the approximate number of abandoned cats in an area. By simply multipying the number of households by 0.5, a reasonable estimate may be established. Dr Levy also found that trapping and killing these cats did not solve the problem while trapping, neutering and returning the cats, did.

Based on this formula we can estimate that approximately 180,000 kittens will die in Ireland each year. Many will die a slow and painful death from starvation as pest control companies will trap nursing mothers leaving the kittens behind. The old method of drowning young kittens is still used in many parts of the country, while some rescues have discovered kittens tied up in fertiliser bags or rubbish bags. This is the ultimate in disposable living!

These animals did not create this problem, it is the result of human irresponsibility and indifference. Continual overbreeding and abandonment will ensure that many more of these beautiful creatures will suffer a similar fate.

(2005 DOG CONTROL FIGURES – SEPT 2006) Dog Pounds.

Under the Pound (Provision and Maintenance) Act 1935, each local authority must provide a dog pound in their functional area. These pounds may be provided by the local authority or private pounds. Private pounds may be operated by a private individual or the the Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

The 1935 Act defines what a pound is: "Any enclosure, building, or premises constructed or adapted for the reception , maintenance, custody, or safe-keeping of chattels or of animals seized or taken under any legal process or lawful warrant or of animals found trespassing, wandering or straying or of chattels of which the owner is unknown or cannot be found."

These establishments should be suitable for the purpose, and have suitable standards. Once picked up or brought to the pound, a stray dog has 5 days to be claimed by its owner; otherwise, it can be rehomed or destroyed. A dog that is surrendered, for whatever reason, may be destroyed immediately and many are.

We have undertaken research into how this service is provided and we have had good feedback from many local authorities. The lack of standardisation in how the pound system is run is very apparent. There is very little similarity between local authorities as to the operation of the service. It can come down to a geographic lottery as to whether a dog will survive or not.

The Control of Dogs act, 1986, comes under the remit of The Department of the Environment. The legislation was enacted in response to the damage to livestock caused by wandering dogs. It could be equated to a litter or disposal service for dogs, as the act itself is primarily concerned with control with little or no welfare content. Some local authorites list their control of dogs service under "waste disposal" and indeed, if you want to speak to someone in connection with the service, you may be put through to waste management.

This speaks volumes as to the priority the 'dog' issue is in some local authorities. In recent years we have all been encouraged to recycle and reduce waste. Taking the analogy of dogs as a type of waste, and the pounds as a waste management facility, one would expect some recycling initiative. The scandal is some pounds have destruction rates of 90% and higher, with one pound having a rate of 97%. This facility can only manage to recycle 3% of its surplus dogs.

This abysmal amount of recycling would be unacceptable in a waste facility, and is also unacceptable when it comes to living creatures.

In three years, 55,650 Dogs were Destroyed in Irish pounds.These are just some of them and possible reasons why they died.

.. Create Your Own

ANVIL (Animals Need a Voice In Legislation) Ireland was established to ensure proper care and protection of all animals in legislation, using the democratic process. The main aim of the group is, to give animals the voice they need in government. ANVIL Ireland is an all Ireland group representing animals in all of Ireland.

ANVIL Ireland recognises animals as sentient beings, with basic needs, and the ability to feel pain, stress and fear. They also recognise the moral responsibility that we, as a first world country, have towards them.

ISAR, the first organization in the world to use the term Animal Rights in a corporate name, was founded in 1959 to expose and end the injustice of the exploitation of animals and the suffering inflicted on them. There's a commitment in ISAR's name: to bring about rights for animals, the right not to be made victims because they are weak and defenseless.

ISAR is the only organization dedicated solely to fighting the tragic pet overpopulation problem and ending the agony animals endure because of it. ISAR advocates the only sensible solution: spaying and neutering all pets. ISAR's campaigns are all designed with one goal in mind, and that is to raise public awareness about the importance of spaying/neutering pets.

PAWS is a work in progress, they started out in Feb 1997 with the intention to rehome unwanted dogs from their current homes. However, they soon realised the huge amount of abuse, neglect and abandonment of Dogs and Cats throughout the County and they started to give them shelter and Veterinary care... News spread fast and soon they were dealing with cases from Cork and Kerry to Sligo and Donegal... Since that time PAWS has rescued, vaccinated, neutered and rehomed thousands of Dogs and Cats and as 70% of these were adults, our neutering programme has prevented millions of unwanted puppies and kittens being born and consequently dumped in ditches, dustbins and dog pounds.

BrayVET is a friendly informal practice where pets are recognised as members of the family. They pride themselves on providing the highest quality healthcare for your pet in a relaxed atmosphere where you will feel quite comfortable discussing the needs of your companion.

Click the banner below to visit www.animalsvoice.com

Ireland is the puppy farm capital of Europe. Don't know what a puppy farm is? Read on...

PUPPY FARM NIGHTMARE ....DUBLIN SPCA & WICKLOW SPCA JOINT OPERATION ON WEDNESDAY 20th JUNE 2007

On Wedneday 20th June the Wicklow and Dublin SPCA were involved in the rescue and removal of over 76 dogs and puppies, a number cats and chickens from a puppy farm in South Wicklow.

Acting on a tip-off from a member of the public, staff from the Wicklow SPCA based in Sharpeshill Animal Sanctuary, Ballygannon, Rathdrum, Co Wicklow, visited the premises in South Wicklow and were sickened and appalled by what they had found.

Realising the scale of the operation Fiona Gammell, Vice President of Wicklow SPCA contacted the Dublin SPCA and asked for assistance in rescuing these unfortunate animals.

At lunchtime on Wednesday 20th June 2007, Inspector TJ Myron, Anne Fitzpatrick, Fiona Gammell and Sandra Eyre of WSPCA from their sanctuary accompanied by Inspector Robert Kenny and Education Officer Orla Aungier from the Dublin SPCA arrived at the location where they removed over 76 dogs and puppies from absolutely appalling conditions.

The dogs were being kept dreadful conditions, ill and unkempt and filthy in their own faeces, held in wire crates or makeshift kennels in cold, damp farm outbuildings, some held inside in dark, wooden crates, barrels and even abandoned cars.

The dogs, mostly Yorkshire terriers and crosses were in a very distressed state. There were four females with litters, one such litter of newborn babies were almost missed as they had been hidden in a foul, dark outbuilding that could only be accessed by crawling in a small hole in the wall. Most of the animals did not have access to light, food or clean water.

The dogs are suffering from a combination of health problems, flea and lice infestations, mange, cataracts, overgrown and diseased teeth, bone problems, ear infections and mites, overgrown nails, mammary tumours, dietary problems and a host of other problems.

A number of cats and kittens were also removed from the premises; one mother and her young baby were sealed into a water barrel lying on its side. There was faeces and filth in the barrel and no evidence of food.

It is a disgrace that this grim industry ranks as one of Ireland's darkest, and most shameful secrets. Ireland is one of puppy farm capitals. Here, cheap, poor quality purebred dogs are mass-produced by the hundreds in cages, bitches bred and bred successively until they drop.

All the animals are currently in the care of the Wicklow and Dublin SPCA and are being cared for and assessed by veterinary teams.

The documented problems of puppy mills include over breeding, inbreeding, minimal veterinary care, poor quality of food and shelter, lack of socialization with humans, overcrowded cages, and the killing of unwanted animals. To the unwitting consumer, this situation frequently means buying a puppy facing an array of immediate veterinary problems or harbouring genetically borne diseases that do not appear until years later.

Sadly, some dogs are forced to live in puppy mills for their entire lives. They are kept there for one reason only: to produce more puppies. Repeatedly bred, many of these "brood Bitches" are killed once their reproductive capacity wanes.

Once again this appalling episode of dogs bread in this dreadful condition just for profit highlights the very urgent need for proper animal welfare legislation, which animal welfare groups have been demanding and asking for year after year, yet promised but never delivered by this or any other government. This legislation is urgently needed to protect and eliminate this unwanted cruelty and suffering of dogs used just to generate large sums of money for greed puppy farm owners, most of whom we believe don’t pay tax.

Minister Martin Cullen set up a review group about 2 ½ years ago to make recommendations on Puppy breeding, that completed report sat on his desk, until he left the Department of the Environment, and Minister Dick Roche sat on that report also and did nothing with it whatsoever, the Dublin SPCA has already written to Minister John Gormley asking him to act and pass in to law the recommendations as outlined by the review group.

Sign the Anti Puppy Farm Petition here

PLEASE READ ALSO OUR BLOG ENTRY ABOUT PUPPY FARMING

Hope-UK is an educational site which hopes to inform about the suffering and horrors of Puppy Farming in the UK.

ARAN is continuing to do research into these farms and are passing all information onto the ISPCA who is taking an actual lead in raiding these farms.