Last updated: 31 Oct, 2024
Published on: 28 Oct, 2024
Hawkesbury CAS: Positive change for our companions
There are some incredibly passionate folks working hard to transform the traditional and outdated model of council pounds into one that prioritises the wellbeing of homeless pets, and they deserve the spotlight shined on them!
We recently spoke with Rob Wainhouse, Coordinator for Animal Services and Community Safety, who has been with Hawkesbury Companion Animal Shelter for just over a year. Working with a fantastic team at the shelter, Rob has driven impressive positive change for homeless pets and the wider community.
Hawkesbury Companion Animal Shelter is located on Sydney’s fringes in NSW and provides stray and adoption services for not only the Hawkesbury region but for other council areas including Penrith, Cumberland, the Hills and Hornsby.
Rob, who is passionate about animal welfare and has extensive experience at other council shelters and in boarding kennels, shared the ways the council has worked with some incredible rescue organisations and vets to produce positive outcomes for homeless pets, while also creating long-term change for pet guardians in the community.
Redesigning shelter care for Hawkesbury’s pets
Drawing on his many years working in boarding kennels, Rob highlights the importance of cats and dogs leaving the shelter happier and healthier than when they arrived.
“It's not just about looking after them and hoping someone comes along to adopt them. It's thinking about what we can do to work on them whilst they're in the facility, or what we can do in terms of finding very specific rescue groups to work with and rehome dogs or cats that have certain needs.”
A fresh new space
A revamp of the shelter thanks to the NSW Local Government Recovery Grants Program created a safer and happier environment for adoptable pets and a more positive and welcoming experience for potential adopters. A dedicated meet and greet area for dogs, away from kennels, means that they can come out and decompress before meeting potential adopters, and are in a quiet low-stress environment away from the noise of the shelter, allowing them to be calmer and more relaxed during meet and greets. A redesigned cat area, based on research into best practices, gave adoptable kitties luxurious condos and a new meeting area, in addition to a separate intake and quarantine area for sick cats to receive the care they need before being in the same area as other cats. The shelter also extended its opening hours over weekends and public holidays, giving potential adopters more time to meet adoptable cats and dogs.
Image via Hawkesbury City Council
Removing financial barriers to pet adoption
Working in collaboration with the council finance department, Hawkesbury was looking for ways to keep adoption costs low and accessible for the community. And they succeeded! So that all families can enjoy the love of a pet and not face financial barriers, all dogs and cats regardless of breed or age have an adoption fee of $99, which includes microchipping, registration, desexing and their first vaccination. Their ‘pet of the week’ special also offers a very affordable $49 adoption fee for long-termers.
Using Tech for Good
The creation of an accessible, standalone website for the animal shelter, separate from the council website, means that members of the community can easily access and locate the Lost Pets section, which is broken down by local government area. Potential adopters can also easily browse and apply for cats and dogs for adoption, with the shelter’s photographer and social media staff member working hard to capture images of adoptable pets looking relaxed and happy and showing off their unique personalities.
"Because we have fully integrated with Shelterbuddy [Animal Shelter Software], the pets on the Lost and Adopt sections are automatically coming through from the shelter management software. So once an animal is impounded, it goes straight into the Lost section at the click of a button, refreshes in real-time, and is also segregated by council areas. We have a great tab for rescue groups and welfare organisations that regularly work with the shelter, and we have links to all their websites."
Shelterbuddy also connects directly with PetRescue, meaning no double handling of data, less admin time, and pets at Hawkesbury get in front of the thousands of potential adopters who visit PetRescue every day.
Hawkesbury’s desexing program
When the council decided to initiate a subsidised desexing program, Rob used his seven years of experience building, improving upon and learning from desexing programs at other councils to develop its model, in collaboration with the wider team. The successful desexing program at Hawkesbury is currently targeted towards pensioners and low-income earners. Pet guardians can purchase subsidised desexing vouchers ($99 for dogs, $49 for cats) if their pet is microchipped, and surgery is usually performed within a few days of booking. If the pet is not microchipped, it is done for free at the shelter.
“We had a 100% uptake rate - every single pet that got booked in got desexed.” says Rob about the program.
Read more about Hawkesbury’s desexing program here.
When asked for his advice to other councils looking at establishing a desexing program, Rob says;
“With establishing a desexing program, I feel it's a community obligation [for the council]. The council runs these programs because people look to their local authority for assistance.
Council-run desexing programs also help with your registration programs, which can mean that you're identifying more pets in your community because you're ensuring that every pet that gets desexed is also getting microchipped. Then you can get them registered.
And if the council is simply running a desexing program a couple of times a year, which might cost the council $10,000, it means that they might save $50,000 or $60,000 on impounding costs. So my advice to councils is to think about the bigger picture; more pets desexed in the community means less cost to the council on impounding services.
I think that if every shelter and every council was doing really solid, robust desexing programmes, you might find that shelters aren’t going to be reaching capacity as much because again, there's not going to be as many unwanted pets out in the community.”
Building relationships to create positive outcomes
Internal Changes
Alongside Companion Animals Team Leader, Danielle Whitley, who had already made big strides toward positive change before his arrival, Rob has helped to instil a positive team culture within the shelter. He highlights the importance of showing empathy for pet guardians and aims for his team and their interactions with the community to ‘be the light for them’ during challenging circumstances.
Rebranding the shelter to become more welcoming and friendly, which included a logo change to highlight their focus on pets as companions, has also helped shift the public perception of the shelter. The move to extend opening hours means that team members have time to complete other tasks such as feeding and cleaning before the shelter opens to the public for the day, which allows them to focus completely on customer service and coordinating meet and greets for adoptable cats and dogs.
The shelter’s new logo.
Building community relationships
The team at Hawkesbury has worked hard over the years to build strong relationships with its stakeholders, particularly local vets and rescue groups.
The council has established relationships with nine local vet clinics. Once a pet is adopted, they’re in contact to book them in for desexing surgery, which can usually happen the next business day. Then, the adopter is provided with the list of local vet clinics and their contact details, allowing them to continue the relationship with the vet if they’d like, or select a clinic closer to them.
The council has strong relationships with various rescue groups, many of which specialise in specific types or breeds of pets. By partnering with these dedicated groups, the council can be part of successfully rehoming even more pets in need.
“Instead of just sending out those generic ‘please take our dog’ emails, we try to be a bit more personable with the rescue groups we work with. We call them and explain the situation, send photos and vet reports and try to establish great rapport with these rescues. We're trying to give them as much information as possible about why we're going to them for a specific animal. So, having that phone call ability, trying to call the people to give them a heads up about a particular animal has started a really good relationship between the shelter and the rescue groups.”
Streamlining shelter operations using Shelterbuddy
The introduction of Shelterbuddy, an Animal Shelter Software system, has helped to streamline systems and records and enabled Hawkesbury to better service partner councils.
“Modernising the shelter through using shelter management software has been great in terms of the governance of the shelter and the operational efficiency, seeing where the gaps are and being able to find records easily, which has been great for our stakeholder councils as well. It's just really enhanced that service with the aim to offer the best we can for our stakeholders and our community.’
1,400+ happy tails of adoption
Hawkesbury has been using their free PetRescue membership to list and rehome the cats and dogs in their care since 2012, allowing their adoptable pets to be seen by a wider audience. The shelter has marked 1,482 pets adopted on PetRescue to date!
Rob shared with us one of his favourite adoption stories, adorable Hayley who was adopted by Michaela and Brett earlier this year after months in the shelter.
“Hayley was four years old when she came into the shelter and it seemed she’d had a few litters of puppies. She was one of our long-term residents who was in the shelter for 253 days.
A very nice couple from Port Macquarie were visiting Sydney and they had been looking on our Facebook page and our website and had seen a few photos and videos of Hayley.
They'd seen the photos of Hayley in the office rolling around with her toys (she was responsible for a lot of exploding toys!) They fell in love with her photo over the internet and came into the shelter and adopted her. And now Hayley is living her best life on the beaches of Port Macquarie.”
Hayley’s adopter Michaela says about her:
“Hayley is a perfect match. Usually twice a day we go for a long walk, and she also loves a quick surf check with Brett. She mustn't have spent any time near the water before so it's been hysterical watching her figure out water in general, and just last week she finally taught herself to swim. She's incredibly smart and at the three month mark I'm really pleased with our training progress. With a lot of patience (and pocket meat!) she's gone from pulling on the lead and being reactive to walking well, sitting, leaving, stopping and coming back. The latter is still not reliable, so she’s not off-leash yet, but we'll get there. Best of all we love night-time snuggles on the sofa. She's really affectionate, brilliant with kids and people. She's everything we'd hoped for and more.”
Using PetRescue to create connections
Rob says to other councils who may be considering a free PetRescue membership to help rehome pets;
"PetRescue isn't just a website where you can see pets available to adopt. It's also a great resource network with a whole dedicated team that are all animal-minded, and are all realistic in terms of what shelters and councils can do and cannot do - they get the limitations of what we can do but can put you in touch with the right people as well. Through our relationship with PetRescue, I've connected PetRescue with another shelter, and now they're starting to get support, and they were able to use those resources on offer by PetRescue (donations of goods). PetRescue is a cog in the wheel of the animal services world.”
Dr Diana Rayment, PetRescue’s Program Specialist, recently visited Hawkesbury Companion Animal Shelter and had this to say;
“At the end of Nell [Thompson] and my visit to the shelter, I literally called Rob 'a breath of fresh air' in his approach to servicing his community and genuinely working with other organisations to create positive outcomes for the community's pets. He loves dogs, he values strong internal and external relationships and takes pride in working with Danielle and a fantastic team of animal-loving professionals to provide great service to his community. Rob’s passion for his work is evident every time I speak with him and I hope we see more great leaders, like Rob, heading up teams in council shelters across the country!”
Are you from a council, and are looking for new ways for the pets in your care to be seen? PetRescue membership is completely free, and allows the adoptable pets in your care to be seen by thousands of potential adopters around Australia each day. To chat with us about joining please email us here.
Learn more about PetRescue’s Safe and Sound Pets program here.
Read about other councils doing awesome work for pets here.
Banner image: Rob with Memphis, via Peter Haynes from Peter Haynes Perspectives