Gosford Dog Paws is a privately owned company that runs Gosford City Dog Pound. We have been operating for a full year as at January 2013, which has been extremely successful. We take on all of the Councils strays and care for them until their owners reclaim them, if they are never reclaimed our dogs are health assessed and behaviour assessed to determine whether suitable for rehoming. All dogs that are suitable are kept here until we find them a new home, there is no time limit placed on our dogs. They are all given whatever vet care is needed and are desexed, microchipped, registered with council, vaccinated, flea treated, heartwormed and wormed.

G2Z Elements & Strategies:

Gosford Dog Paws is a rehoming centre; we strive to find all of our dog’s new and loving homes. We have a good base of volunteers that help with exercising and training our dogs to be ready for their new home. Our dogs are advertised on a variety of different websites, in the local paper and their photos are sent through to business owners who are happy to hang them up and advertise for us. The more marketing we can do the quicker we can find our dogs homes. We have a total of 42 kennels and have a big yard for exercising and 2 large runs for exercising. Our dogs are rotated through and are socialised with other dogs, so that the more we can get out together the better for them to run around and play and tucker themselves out. This also helps with rehoming as the dogs will remain social and new owners will not have any dog aggression issues. All of our dogs are given a behaviour assessment, this assessment is the exact same one that the RSPCA uses, however, if our dogs fail the test, we do not put them to sleep; we look at why they failed and work on fixing that behaviour in rehabilitation. The years before my company took over the running of the Pound, council charged the public $82 for the first day to reclaim their dog. We have since been able to convince the Council to decrease that to $35 and we are seeing a lot more dogs going home to their owners rather than staying here because their owners can’t afford to reclaim. All of our dogs go on a trial period and we are happy to take our dog back if it does not work out. This gives potential owners a bit of relief and are willing to take on the dog knowing that if it does not work out best for the dog and the family that we are here for support.

Recent Achievements in Getting to Zero:

Since Gosford Dog Paws took over in January 2012 we have dropped the euthanasia rates by 35%, this was a huge achievement for us. In 2011 the euthanasia rates were at 50% and they are now 15%. This figure will also drop this year as we have built up our skills on training, and we have a good relationship with rescue. We are planning for our euthenasia rates this year to be between 5-10%.

Support Needed:

The top 4 priorities for Gosford Dog Paws:

• Community support – word of mouth is perhaps the biggest thing for us, because we are still a Pound we receive continuous amounts of abuse because we “kill” all animals. Instead of coming in and meeting us, seeing the facility and the things we do on a daily basis, people prefer to be closed minded and still believe the pound is run how it was many years ago. In turn we still do get a lot of good press from some members of the community that know what we do and the people who have adopted from us. It would be nice for them to tell their friends, family and work colleagues of what we do and spread the word!
• Another thing is people calling us, sending us emails, and private messages telling us to help e.g. “save these animals”, “drive there and rescue that cat” etc. Instead of them saying I will help and foster they expect someone else to do it. I think we need a larger foster care network and more volunteers.
• Our community needs to take a stand to Backyard Breeders and Pet stores. The reason that pounds are inundated with animals is because of all the bad breeders and pet stores. Instead of ignoring the issue because they do not see the animals at the pound everyday they should stand up for what is right. “Out of sight out of mind” I believe the majority of people follow this saying.
• It would be great if the community could – Adopt, if you can’t adopt, Foster, if you can’t Foster, volunteer, if you can’t volunteer, donate and if you can’t donate then share our animals profiles that are up for adoption. Everyone can do something.

Adoption, reclaim, foster and euthanasia statistics for last two full financial or calendar years:

Gosford Dog Paws has only been operating the Pound for one year.

Adopted: 75%

Gone to rescue: 10%

Put to sleep: 15%