Hope for Homeless Animals

(Please send this link (in the address bar at the top) to anyone who should know, as well as enyone in government you think should read it – it’s time this issue received proper attention… – animalman)

The diabolical pet by-laws enacted recently limiting the number of animals you may have at your home, themselves a challenge to logic, common sense and practicality, have recently given rise to newspaper articles.

Amanda Watson wins the Irresponsible Journalism Prize this month for her article in the Eastern Sunday Tribune last week containing this sparkling quote from the Joburg city officials’ boundless catalogue of inspiring repartee: “Owners may give pets in excess of the permitted number to the SPCA or to friends who would like to have them”. In a single, sweeping sentence, Amanda has given voice to a malaise in our society that would be funny if its consequences were not so sad: we treat animals as if they are commodities. So never mind that there is an emotional bond, both ways, between non-human animal and human animal, in some cases stronger than that with other humans; never mind that the SPCA destroys 80% conservatively of the animals entrusted to its care, and never mind that the owners are quite capable of supporting them – just hand them over, they are excess to requirements…

Bad By-laws

This is the latest in a series of unfortunate and unnecessary events related to the animal legislation issue, and animal lovers in the Western Cape protested with sufficient verve to have their by-laws, very similar to these, repealed.  One would think that the Johannesburg lawmakers would have learned from those events, but it seems each province operates within its own vacuum, seemingly devoid of both intelligence and respect for the community. These by-laws must be repealed here too, and replaced with legislation that has at least a modicum of sense, compiled in consultation with those doing the real work of rescuing and homing animals, rather than the ever-present but useless NSPCA. Oh and how come these enacted by-laws are different from the draft by-laws? Surely the process that resulted in them being enacted without public review is unconstitutional?

The by-laws reflect a lack of forethought and understanding, not only of the real causes and effects of the current situation, but of the interaction of resources, processes and outcomes in any given large-scale complex system.

Let me explain.

Let’s start with the arbitrary number per household, always supposing you can understand the difference between a dwelling unit and a dwelling house, and this is by no means clear, especially when you consider that if you have more than one family living on a property with two buildings on it, your property would be disqualified anyway, another illustration of the weak thinking applied in the development of these by-laws. Whenever an arbitrary number is applied to a scenario in which the variables to which the rule must be applied have an almost infinite number of combinations, you can be assured that the result will be a half-baked solution. The by-laws equate two Dachshunds with two Great Danes, and you need only limited intelligence to recognise that the keeping of these two vastly different breeds demands differing levels of upkeep, attention and space. How then can this arbitrary number ever be appropriate? When you realise that it effectively enables people to keep 2 Great Danes in a flat, you see the silliness of the by-laws, since doing so would demonstrably be cruel, as it would be to keep any large breeds cooped up in a tiny space. And while we are on the subject of space, why is there no mention of space in the by-laws? Surely if they have been designed with the animals’ interests in mind, the provision of space to run and enjoy life is a more important issue than how many buildings there are? It is questionable whether the animals were even considered, but more on that later…

Not to nitpick, but the by-laws are also very clear that only animals over the age of 6 months are provided for. So WHERE, pray tell, would puppies grow up? Or would they be sent to the SPCA euthanasia machine, effectively wiping out the dog population of the future? The by-laws as currently written make the existence of puppies illegal. Stupid, stupid law, seemingly written by a student of horror movies rather than a competent legislator. Or perhaps the puppies of the future will spontaneously arrive in existence already 6 months old?!

Large-scale Complexity

THEN, and I need you to follow me here, since the issue of the consequences of the by-laws and their relationship to providing solutions to the challenges facing animal welfare workers in South Africa is complex, although not so complex that a person with just a little understanding cannot grasp what seems to be beyond those involved in the development of these by-laws.

According to the SPCA, introduction of the by-laws has a ‘positive impact by curbing backyard breeders and reducing animal cruelty’, to quote from a recent newspaper article in which the SPCA were referred to CHECK!!!

What utter nonsense. Since you only need two animals, a male and a female, to breed in your backyard, how will these by-laws have any impact whatsoever on the number of new animals becoming inputs into the system? If you intended to do something about these inputs, the best way would be to curb the breeding taking place by legislating against backyard breeding and making it illegal to have an unsterilised animal unless you are a licensed breeder. Surely this would have been a more logical place to focus, at the point where the inputs start the entire process, rather than putting a ‘cap’ on the outputs? Only an idiot believes that by limiting an effect you can alter a cause. You would be laughed out of any University classroom for suggesting so, yet here we have legislators and the SPCA claiming that this is not only rational, but desirable?

And how does limiting the numbers of animals in homes reduce cruelty? Cruelty is the result of an attitude and an underlying lack of respect and value for animals, not a question of numbers. It’s just nonsensical. Reducing the existing capacity is likely to be cruel, at the very least to the humans who may feel required to surrender their animals, and in addition to the animals that have lovely homes but would have to go and stay in a Shelter. How is this a reduction of cruelty? How would you make the choice, FIFO, LIFO? We use these terms when we speak of commodities…

“There are not enough homes for abandoned pets and people should only keep animals if they can afford to meet their needs such as food, water, shelter and veterinary care as a bare minimum”, Candice Segal of Sandton SPCA was quoted as saying in a recent newspaper article. While I am in agreement with Candice, the essence of her statement is found in the phrase ‘if they can afford’ – why then do the by-laws completely bypass the affordability issue and set an absolute number for all people irrespective of their means? I know plenty of homes where there are a lot more than 4 animals and they all live in the lap of luxury In addition, there is no guarantee that reducing the numbers will reduce the negligence, since negligence does not result from a single cause, and to suggest so would be to abdicate one’s intelligence. Ignorance, lack of resources, and blatant irresponsibility all play their part, and to isolate a single factor and produce by-laws focusing only on the volume of animals is to oversimplify the problem. No competent problem-solver would be so foolish as to think that by putting a cap on the output of a given system that it will magically reduce the numbers flowing into the system. I would not employ a person who believed this, except perhaps as a village idiot somewhere.

Let’s talk about the phenomenon of the growth of the number of animals for which homes cannot be found, caused by the increased number of animals bred by stupid householders who want their Popsy to have ‘just one litter’, or the indiscriminate backyard breeder who seeks to make a profit by having his Boxer permanently pregnant and the Puppy Mill owner who constantly finds buyers in Pet Shop owners who could care less as long as there is a market. Add to this the registered breeders who somehow see themselves as innocent in this plot, when they definitively contribute to the numbers and the sad statistics those of us familiar with the real world see every day: more than 1000 animals euthanized nationally daily and only one in every 12 animals born finding homes, and these are conservative estimates. They are an indictment of a nation and an illustration of the ineffectiveness of current strategies to combat the problem, and in enacting this legislation, Government and the SPCA just made it worse.

How can I say this? Think about it. If you increase the inputs into a given system and then you limit the capacity of resources to absorb those inputs, where do those inputs land up? They land up in the middle – in this case, in the Shelters, already strained to breaking point. And since the Shelters are little more than temporary storage bins for the euthanasia process, they effectively amount to almost certain death for any animals ‘dropped off at the SPCA’, so naively suggested in Amanda Watson’s article by Virgil James, city council spokesman who clearly has no understanding of the nature of a personal relationship between a human and a creature of another species….

This limit on individual capacity, one enforced by incompetent legislation, has another effect. In the animal rescue and welfare community, a process is used to buffer the fact of insufficient homes being available at any point in time – that of fostering, something the SPCA does not indulge in for some mysterious reason, and yet which is used successfully in the informal rescue and homing process all over the world. Animals are placed in existing homes temporarily until permanent homes can be found. I recently did this myself, and I will do it again, since the benefits of the process so far outweigh the downsides that it is simply a no-brainer. The foster animals become socialised, they can also be rehabilitated in a completely normal and natural manner, get a chance to develop normalised eating, sleeping and playing habits, and get the opportunity to recover where they have been abused or neglected. Under to the new by-laws, this would be illegal. Quite honestly, if a law is stupid, I will break it – over and over again, if necessary. And this one is not just stupid, it is insane – it should be consigned to a padded cell…

Public Consultation

I wondered how it is that such laws are enacted, since one marvels at the possibility that people so ignorant of the workings of the real world can be writing legislation. It did occur to me that, given the involvement of the NSPCA in the development of the by-laws, there must be some reason why they should find it necessary to implement the removal of a community’s civil liberty with little regard for the needs of that community and without their input. When the possibility did hit me, I initially rejected the notion, since it seemed too shocking to consider, but who benefits from this draconian legislation? It’s very simple – only one party does – the SPCA are paid as the ‘pound’ for every carcass, and since there will be more carcasses, SPCA coffers will swell. Strange state of affairs for an organisation supposedly mandated to ensure the protection of animals against cruelty, to profit from the death of their wards. Perhaps death is the new welfare…

Why were only the NSPCA involved in the consultation process? The SPCA is not the only body representing the animal-loving community in South Africa, and we demand that members of the non-SPCA affiliated organisations be involved in the review process in future. As far as we are concerned the SPCA lost the plot a long time ago. The fact that the SPCA does not support or engage in fostering is an illustration of how out of touch they are. When you advocate that people hand animals to you in the knowledge that there is a 90% probability that the animal will be put down, you have lost the position of custodian of animal affairs and represent little more than a white elephant institution, governed no longer by your mandate but by expediency.

The NSPCA also claims that it ‘enforces’ 90% of animal legislation, a statement I still believe to be debatable since I am not sure what they mean by ‘enforce’. How will they police this? Will it be their intention to create databases of animals on each property? I think not – they simply do not have the resource base. But what they have done in enacting these by-laws is given those who dislike animals leverage, and an opportunity to use the law to their own ends. Expect thousands of calls to SPCA’s all over SA from people complaining about their neighbour’s animals, thereby tying up resources that should be combating animal neglect and abuse in petty issues regarding the number of animals someone has. Brilliant. The SPCA just became the tool of the ignorant and petty.

These by-laws, enacted now in Tshwane, Joburg and Cape Town, must go. We welcome the addition of clauses enforcing Pet Shops to vaccinate their animals and the addition of a clause stopping the use of fireworks near animals. However the first is useless and we would have preferred outlawing animals in Pet Shops and the second is still too vague to be of any value. We must put together a team of people who can assist the Government to find their way out of the dark and propose by-laws that will be in the animals’ interests as well as the interests of their custodians.

A Light in their Darkness

Derek

The Hopeful Initiative

Link to our Forum on this topic:  http://hopeful.ws/arf/post.php?action=newthread&fid=7

Bookmark this post:

Tags: animal care, animal law, animal rescue, animal welfare

This entry was posted by Derek on Wednesday, April 14th, 2010 at 1:32 am and is filed under Animal legislation, animal neglect, animal welfare. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.