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BE CAREFUL – YOUR VOTE COULD MEEN THE FOX GETS IT!!
Their life in your hands
Do you know that top of an opposition party’s agenda is to reverse the Hunting with dogs ban 2004? Believing they are above the law, the moneyed, landed gentry and ruling classes have flouted this ban. The ban on Fox hunting is greatly at risk if this political leader gets his way. According to a Mari poll 84% of this party’s want to repeal the ban. Indeed it has been said that they, and their supporters rallied opposition to the Hunting Act at some mass ‘rides to hounds’ on Boxing day.
Along with the Countryside Alliance (once the Field Sports Association) their strategy on Boxing Day was to use hunts to highlight enforcement problems and prove that following artificial trails seldom failed to set up a fox. But surely if there is a way to flout this ban then the law need to be tightened - not scrapped. Many hours were spent on this hunting Bill and the cost of Parliamentary time was questioned. True, there were and still are more important issues, yet it’s debates always had a full house of MP’s.
This party’s candidates are said to have been advised not to give their view on hunting but to promise to consult their constituents prior to voting, attempting to pull the wool over our eyes. They claimed to have modernised this party, yet it is clear that nothing has changed.
In another recent Mari poll, three quarters of the population do NOT want hunting with dogs to be made legal again. The same poll shows that 72% of the rural population want to keep the ban in place. Don’t let them and the pro hunting lobby ride rough shod over the rest of us.
If you are voting, demand that your MP support the views of the constituents, and are not just supporting themselves yet again.
This should not be a political issue it was an all party ban and should remain that way.
Yet here we are again, preparing to spend more Parliamentary time on this ‘low priority’ matter. It is said by them that it isn’t one of their top priorities; however, it will be included in the very first Queens Speech. Contradictions and lies before they are elected.
If you would like to sign the petition against any move to repeal the Hunting Act, please visit www.backtheban.com. Please let your family and friends know too.
Thank you!
F.A.I.T.H. Animal Rescue was honored to be the nominated charity for the launch of Cesar Millan's first ever live UK tour, which opened at the London O2 Arena on Wednesday 3rd March 2009. We had an information stall present at the venue and managed to raise £371 via our gold coin collection.
Cesar and F.A.I.T.H. both believe in the social housing of rescue dogs, the rehabilitation of problem dogs and the importance, promotion and implementing of neutering. We train our dogs the Dog Whisperer way!
Above: Judith Simmance (F.A.I.T.H. Founder and Trustee) talks to Cesar about our work
Above left and below: Our members of staff were extremely honored to meet and talk with Cesar. Above right: Our information boards
In our Newsletter Autumn 2008, I was excited at the prospect that instead of just coping with the unwanted/homeless and stray dog problem, we were beginning a journey to tackle the problem at source. A journey that I felt would make a difference and kick start a decline in the amount of homeless dogs. We all know that there is a huge problem with puppy farms, both with animal welfare issues and the amount of dogs being bred and sold. Legislation is already in place and this problem could be better dealt with, if only the councils and government would see ‘dogs’ as a priority issue. Sadly it seems everything else comes first even in the environmental services department - waste, recycling and litter comes way ahead of dogs, yet the disposal of the bodies of destroyed dogs causes huge environmental problems of it’s own.
There is another big source of ‘over-breeding’ and this comes from people selfishly breeding their pets to make extra money. Whether it is to boost their household benefits or income, or to pay for their holiday, new car, or simply to spend on cigarettes and alcohol - it seems many view it as an opportunity to make money with little effort. There is certainly no thought on the impact that their unnecessary breeding will have on society. The un-neutered pups are homed out to anyone who has the right amount of cash, whether it is the right home or owner for the dog is not their concern. Many of these dogs will become ‘problem dogs’, with the majority being ‘put to sleep‘, a lucky few ending up in Rescue Centres like F.A.I.T.H. that will work through the problems. Those that do remain in a home may be bred from themselves and so the cycle continues.
I wrote of this too, I mentioned one of many cases. A nine month old German Shepherd bitch, back yard bred, sold into an unsuitable home and now fear aggressive and destined for destruction - just another statistic. She was one of the lucky few that found a space here at F.A.I.T.H. We worked tirelessly with her and she now has a new home.
I then wrote about the problem with Staffy types and how we were working with Norwich City Council to stem this with our ‘Taking the Lead’ project.
[Please if you have time read ‘The Secretary Writes’ Newsletter 24]
At the beginnings of the 'Taking the lead' project, back in June 08, NCC (Norwich City Council) were progressively acting on the stray problem. They agreed to take on extra kennels at their holding kennels to help house the overload of 'Staffy type' dogs that had brought F.A.I.T.H. to saturation point. F.A.I.T.H. housed all the unclaimed NCC strays. Together it was agreed that dogs not homed through F.A.I.T.H. would be neutered by NCC before being moved on, as they did not want to just move a problem to other areas. NCC did not want to become a “Death Row” council like so many others are, and to their credit they were ready to take their responsibility seriously. F.A.I.T.H. continued to offer space to ALL other dogs and as many Staffy types as possible.
In order to tackle the problem at source F.A.I.T.H. and NCC were to work together on a the 'Taking the lead' project, which was to offer free neutering, paid for by F.A.I.T.H, to dogs owned by Norwich City Council tenants (particularly those of Staffy type) NCC were to offer micro-chipping and dog I.D. disc. Leaflets on neutering were to be circulated - these carried the reinstatement of the tenancy agreement that prevented the breeding and sale of any animals from council houses, which was deemed commercial use. The NCC felt that this was such and important issue, they wanted to go for a 'big bang launch' and so asked F.A.I.T.H. not to have any correspondence with the press regarding the project and wished to handle all PR and interviews themselves closer to launch day.
The first date set was November 08 but that passed by and it was then hoped that March 09 would be the launch. Correspondence with the council became very difficult, emails and phone messages were not answered. Then on January 5th 09 we received an email from their Communications office to say that we must get moving on this due to media interest. This came about when I spoke to the local press about the stray problem. We eagerly responded to the email, only to be told that the environment services person, who oversees dog issues, warden etc. was in a meeting but they would be back in touch asap. They didn’t get in touch and we eventually found out that he was no longer in a meeting but away from the office for two weeks. Frustrated by this lack of urgency but still trying to remain calm we eventually got to meet both council parties at City Hall on the 30th January where we had been allocated a half hour window to discuss matters. There seemed a positive outcome though, the council now wanted April 09 to be the big launch and we would definitely be hearing from them by 23rd February at the latest. They promised and reassured us that they 'would' be in touch, but we never heard from them.
Our attempts to communicate with them failed. Nothing had been sorted out about the 'Taking the lead' leaflet, of which there were conflicting ideas on layout design. Then on 26th March we received an email from their communications officer apologising for the lack of correspondence to the various emails we had been sending them, but they had been so busy with end of year accounts. They also informed us that they “have had to rethink this project“ as budgets were tight and they “unfortunately no longer have funds available to produce a leaflet.” Attached was a 'press release' they proposed to print in their 'Tenant Talk' circulation for May/June 09 - What had happened to the big April launch agreed on in our prior meeting?
The press release had simply been the addition of two small paragraphs followed by a 'copy and paste' of the leaflet information - was this honestly all that had been achieved in the two months following our meeting in late January? I was too insulted and frustrated by their lack of urgency to respond, however I had decided to go ahead for the mid July, as it was to serious an issue to give up on, so emailed and phoned on several occasions but to no avail. Due to the council’s lack of funds for the ‘new financial year’ we emailed to say the F.A.I.T.H. would pay for all the “Taking the Lead” leaflets.
I eventually managed to speak to 'Communications', who actually answered the phone. She said she had received my emails and would reply once she had spoken with 'Environmental services'. A few days later having not heard from her, we emailed again. An auto-reply email instantly appeared informing us that she was out of the office until 6th July. I was speechless, having not heard from the Environmental services or Communications - though I left many phone messages and emails, I have had no choice but to give up on their inefficiency.
They were already spending time and money homing out dogs like Labs and Yorkies, leaving F.A.I.T.H. to take the less homeable. Unnecessarily spending council money neutering dogs that could have been homed through F.A.I.T.H, yet there were no funds for ’Taking the Lead’ which was to help deal with the Staffy problem and was why we went to the council in June 08. The dog warden told us she was not to have any correspondence with us on this matter. Unable to communicate with any of the people that we were suppose to be working with, for now we have stopped taking any Norwich City Council strays, and await a phone call or email from them.
On 2nd September we received a “Death Row list” email (Which we receive regularly from all over the country) and on this particular list were 10 dogs from Norwich City Council. Which read “I have been asked by Norwich dog warden to help if possible with the staffies. Our local council dose not normally pts (put to sleep) but due to the amount of staffies in at the moment they have no other choice!” Had they kept their word and done what they said they would do at our meeting over a year ago, this situation may not have arisen and the future for dogs would definitely have been brighter.
The following “Taking the Lead” leaflet is what we should have ran with in July. The wording on the front is the amended and accepted version from Norwich City Council.
I then received a call in mid September from ‘May Gurney’ constructions. It seems that the council may pass the ‘strays’ contract to them.
Above: front and back cover of our proposed 'Taking the Lead' leaflet, and below is our draft design of the central information page.
If this has annoyed you, I hope you will let NCC know by, letter or email. Also please sign our online petition, it may prompt them back on course. Though as with most government issues, once they head in the wrong direction, they continue to do so - No U-turn I believe.
We have worked hard and spent many long hours raising thousands of pounds through charitable trusts to work with NCC on the “Taking the Lead” project. We can only hope that one day the environmental services and communications office will communicate with us.
F.A.I.T.H. would like to make inroads into the very sad animal welfare situation in this country, starting with our own county of Norfolk.
You may remember how we spoke of the thousands of stray dogs on ‘Death Row’ across the country and that we helped as many as was possible for us to offer sanctuary too. We would like to continue helping these poor unfortunate dogs. Sadly the problem has spread, things are deteriorating as more and more people are ‘back yard dog breeding’. I fear the predicted recession will make things worse, for as well as the increasing numbers of dogs looking for homes, there will also be more people breeding their pet to boost their income. It has already started, popular types – rather than well bred dogs are being turned out by so many. Only a few days ago some people arrived from Norwich with a German Sheppard bitch, nine months old and fearing everyone, which was shown by her aggression. If we didn’t take her, her owners said they had no other choice than to have her destroyed. No other rescue would give her a chance because of her aggression. We could see it was fear that was the problem, and could possibly be over come. She had never been outside the flat from which she came, sold into an unsuitable home by a ‘back yard breeder’ to an ignorant person thinking he was buying a pure German Sheppard. He paid good money, so was sure that was what he was getting – he was wrong!
I can’t explain why this is happening as there seems no logic in it. It can only be that we are a ‘throw away society’ and whether we can afford it or not, what we want - we must have! This thinking also applies to dogs. People will always find the money to buy a puppy, but they won’t be able to pay it’s vet bill, vaccinations, neutering (though many will intend to breed from the dog anyway) few will have the dogs micro-chipped and many will be unwanted by the time they are grown and are no longer a cute pup.
As I mentioned in the last Newsletter, F.A.I.T.H. is now taking responsibility for all the unclaimed Norwich strays. The pressure on us is enormous. We are working to increase our kennel space and have applied for help from different quarters. We await with baited breath for a response. However it is not simply a question of kennel space and taking in dogs. We have to find responsible homes or the dogs are back where they started and nothing would have been achieved.
The problem with Staffie types had become so great that it had got to saturation point, we could not cope with the vast amounts of this type of dog. We had a meeting with NCC (Norwich City Council) and they agreed to hold dogs that had not been claimed for longer than the statuary seven days waiting period. They also lease four times the amount of kennel space from the holding kennel they use. NCC did not want to become a ‘Death Row’ Council, as are so many Councils, and took their responsibility seriously. F.A.I.T.H. continues to take all other dogs but had to limit the number of Staffie types. As the number of Staffies at the holding kennel built up the dog warden got in touch with the local paper and television to bring awareness to these dogs and try to find new homes for them. Sadly only two so far have been homed. The Council realised for themselves just how hard it was to find the right homes. It was agreed that all these dogs would be neutered prior to homing. One person arrived at the Council kennels wanting to home one of the dogs, but he did not want it neutered as he wanted to breed from it. Even after seeing a whole row of unwanted Staffies looking for homes, he still intended to breed even more!
I really can’t understand how some peoples minds work (or more possibly – don’t work) Well something more had to be done if Norfolk wasn’t to become a Death Row’ County too. We went back to Norwich City Council with a proposal that we are still working on and hope will be in place by November. Free neutering is going to be offered to all dogs from local authority housed families. I did approach large animal welfare organisations but to no avail. So even though we are only a ‘little player’ in the ‘animal welfare stakes’, we are going to dig deep into our funds and try to stop the problem at source. Working with NCC radical action will be taken. F.A.I.T.H. and the Council will work to educate members of the local communities where the problems mostly originate. It will be made clear that the breeding of any dog and the sale of puppies from council premises will be deemed as commercial use and the tenant may loose their tenancy for such an act. Also anyone receiving state benefits will be reported and the benefits stopped immediately. In addition they will enforce the requirement for all dogs to wear an I.D. tag (the council will offer free microchipping and I.D. tags.) This will coincide with the neutering programme that F.A.I.T.H. will put in place using local veterinary centres. We will try to get media coverage and F.A.I.T.H. will also lobby government to make it clear that breeding dogs is a taxable income, along with the campaign to stop Puppy Farming.
There are too many dogs and not enough homes! Along with NCC, F.A.I.T.H. will ‘Take the Lead’ starting in Norwich, concentrating on ‘Staffie types’ first. We will then be hoping to extend this not only to all dogs but also into different areas should we get the councils backing i.e. Great Yarmouth, Lowestoft and Broadland. We are already in contact with NNDC (North Norfolk District Council). Wish us luck, it’s a very long stony road ahead. Won’t it be lovely if I can say to you next year that the number of strays has fallen, as has the adverts for puppies and dogs for sale in the local free ad papers. If strays were down and homing up, we could help more with the dogs on Death Row from out of the area. We are being watched by a lady in the West Country, if we have success here, she will insist on the same from her council. Who knows, one day the wish that every dog will have a home could be a possibility and not the pipe dream it is at present.
Fingers crossed for a successful project.
Hooray, the isolation cat cabins are finished, the floor tiling has been completed. Our thanks to Alan Tuddenham for all his hard work, laying the flooring in his free time. Also thanks to Great Yarmouth Tiles and EGC for donating the tiles. Designer Kennel who built the cattery had never had a design like ours before, but they followed our plan and model to a “t”. We are so pleased with the end result. Thank you to everyone who contributed. Just the “Main cat-house” to do now!!
We are being asked to help more and more with the dogs from Death Row. We already take all the unclaimed strays from the local council and police for rehoming. The Death Row dogs are unclaimed strays from all over the country; we help those mainly from Yorkshire and Nottingham. Thousands of dogs are destroyed if they have not been claimed after their “seven days waiting.” Every day, every week, year upon year dogs are being killed because “their time is up.” We take what we can, when we can but priority has to be given to Norfolk and Suffolk dogs in need. When the ‘strays’ van arrives, such sadness and confusion is seen in the eyes of these poor animals as they unload after their long journey. One can only wonder what they have been through and what life they’ve come from. However they are usually much happier the next day. It’s lovely to see them wagging their tails and to see that little bit of hope in their eyes. Click the link to read more on Death Row Dogs.
Bernadette has now closed her craft shop, but you can still get beautiful pots from her stall and at different fetes and fairs throughout the year. Our grateful thanks to Bernadette and all her helpers.
The FAITH animal charity shop at Howard Street, Great Yarmouth has had a revamp and is looking very nice. Please go along and meet some of the lovely people that work there including Lofty who is now running it, and has made many of the changes himself. There are some great bargains to be had. Other helpers of which there are too many to name, but are very precious to us are those volunteering at the centre, those helping in the shops, people fundraising with their own events i.e. sales, competitions and dances. All these people mean so much to FAITH, without whom it could not survive. Thanks also to all that have made donations of money, food or items for sale, and all those that have set up bankers orders. It is such a comfort to know that we have a certain amount of money coming in every month to pay the bills.
From all the animals that you have helped to save and will hopefully continue to help “Thank you” – Thank you for giving them their lives.
Judy [Founder & Secretary]
Well what a hectic Christmas, over 40 dogs in, and not one bit of space left. With more dogs waiting to come in after Christmas - Where were we going to put them all?
Then there came a phone call from a local paper wanting a story about 'Homeless animals at Christmas' - this in turn brought the local radio and BBC Look East. The publicity although it made us very busy with visitors, allowed us to book out a lot of dogs and cats for collection after the Christmas period. [as we do not promote giving animals as gifts]
I was then able to pick up three strays Tipple a Collie x, Wee Dram a brown/white Border Collie and Halfpint a short legged Lab x Basset. That was just the start of many but hopefully the worst is over.
On New Years Day, I was at the vets with a lovely black Collie x GSD bitch called Link, she had given birth to two puppies two days earlier and seemed ok. She had come to us just under two weeks before and as it didn't look like she was carrying many pups we had no cause to worry when she only gave birth to two. But on New Years Eve as I took her for her nightly walk I realised she was not right and would need the vet in the morning. I monitored her throughout the night and became convinced that there was a dead pup still inside her.
So it was on New Years Day that the dead pup was removed and Link was spayed, she stayed in overnight so I brought the pups home and fed them every two hours. The following day I went to pick Link up about mid afternoon and she went crazy because she was so happy to see me. It is this that brings it's rewards, even if our festive holidays can't be quite as other peoples we have our pleasures.
We are pleased to announce that the website has had a lot more "hits" since it has been updated, and has helped bring new homes to the animals and online donations - such a help as we are always desperate for funds. Fundraising is very hard work and time consuming, and our fundraisers are few, so donations either online or sent direct by post quite literally help us save lives. Thank you to all those who have donated so far.
Also if any one would like to be added to our mailing list to receive our twice yearly newsletters please send an email to us at faithanimalrescue@hotmail.com. Headed: F.A.I.T.H. MAILING LIST, followed by your name and address.
Thank you to everyone that has added F.A.I.T.H. to their favourites list, our aim this year is to update on a daily basis, so keep checking back for the latest animals, news, stories and events. It is lovely to know that there is a real interest in our work out there.
Happy New Year!
Judy [Founder & Secretary]
NEW CAT CABINS READY FOR USE
(October 06)
We are proud to show off our New Isolation Cattery Cabins that, although are already in use, we still need to raise money to get the flooring down. Once this is done they will be so easy to keep clean.
Our old wooden cabins and runs had lasted us over ten years, most years we spent hours wood preserving and repairing them. It had got to the point of no return as far as trying to save them, and they had to be replaced.
Money doesn't come easy and we needed to spend wisely. We needed a design where we could get a double row of cabins each with an outside, but covered run. So we searched the country (at least it seemed that way) Finally down in Kent we found the inspiration we were looking for and set about designing, drawing and even making a model. We believed we had designed them in such a way that they will be cool enough in the summer and warm enough in the winter. They are low maintenance, very hygienic and easy to clean. Hope you like them as much as we do.
Thank you to everyone who has helped make this possible, we can now look forward to our next project of refurbishing the main cat-house.
