Dog Rescue Association of Victoria Inc.

26/03/2026

UNBELIEVABLE. The government has paused the new Prevention of Cruelty Bill.
Surely it would not be because Jacinta Allen lives in a rural electorate, supports duck shooting, and is worried about votes in her electorate. Please read this article: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/mar/25/victoria-animal-protection-laws-shelved What do you think? Please share and write to the Premier. Remember the old adage: on the end of every lead is a voter - and on the end of every person stroking a cat is a voter too

Exclusive: Labor bill recognising all animals as sentient and raising care requirements won’t be introduced before state election

19/03/2026

What can we say. We too are often asked where should people go to buy a dog. We cannot recommend enough that you visit the property your dog is coming from.
We are sometimes told about dodgy rescue groups but if you cannot trust that dog breeders associations will take responsibility for the actions of their members what exactly is the point of them at all.

22/02/2026

Little Omisha died in 2018. Still we battle unchanged legislation and codes that encourage more killing. This is what the rescue sector has fought since we began twenty years ago. Why does the government want to return us to those dark days? All we want is to be recognised as legitimate - to be recognised as the owners of the pets we save and allowed to save dogs and cats from the pound and shelters. Other aspects are open to negotiation. These are not.
Omisha is dead. How many more must die for no reason while the government keeps referring to outdated legislation that they refuse to change while making other needless amendments.

Another dead dog at Mildura Pound. This time a puppy.

Omisha. All we can do for you is name you. Omisha means the spirit of life and death. You had scarcely lived, Omisha, before they killed you. At least let us give you a name to remember you by rather than just another death at Mildura Pound.
How old were you? Twelve weeks? Fourteen weeks? You came into Mildura Pound on the 28th August and sometimes around Friday 7th September you were killed.

Why? FOR EXCESSIVE BARKING.

Did the pound vet query at all why you were being killed? Did he sedate you? Did you even make it to the vet or were you shot at the back of the pound now there are no volunteers allowed in the pound to witness what is happening? Was the same ranger who participated in the kitten shootings in 2009 on duty that day?

All we have left of you is a blurry photo –– perhaps you were a little border collie cross with a slightly longer coat – your tail is tucked under your legs, you are facing the wall, with your head turned – you seem to be looking at the ranger– did you know what was coming – are you terrified – are you pleading with your eyes. We can’t know because all we have of you is one poor quality photo. Was it like this deliberately because already they knew your fate.

Know that rescue wanted so much to save you.

Yes a good photo is worth a 1000 words. We can’t even give you that. But we will remember you.

If you mourn for Omisha as we do, please write, ring, email to the contact list. There is also a template at the end of the list. https://www.drav.org.au/news-and-updates/contacts-to-express-your-view-of-mildura-pound

It is legal under the Code of Death to kill an animal for excessive barking as the Code is so poorly drafted it can be used for good or evil. Surely the deaths over the past twelve years at Mildura Pound that still continue, the negligence, the casual cruelty, the pretence of an isolation ward, must have their own ripple effect on this so-called ‘tourist’ mecca.

Please do not let Omisha have died in vain. Speak for her.

22/02/2026

We are getting many requests for a draft email/letter and a simple explanation. Here are the two main points.

1. Whether we join APRO or not the rescue group is NOT the owner of the pet they have saved, vetworked and rehomed.

2. If the group joins APRO they are able to have an agreement with the pound whereby they take animals. However it is NOT stated that they can take them WITHOUT vetwork. This means we are back to the early days where the very young, the very old, the sick were killed, any that are not able to have vetwork done at that time.

If the group does NOT join APRO under the current proposal they can NOT take any animals from the pound.

Before we can even think about further negotiations we must own the dogs in our care and be able to have agreements to save any pet from the pound.

Please ask the Minister for Agriculture Ros Spence, the Shadow Minister Emma Kealy and the Greens Ellen Sandell this.

Let the rescue groups own the animals in their care - whether they join APRO or not.
Let all rescue groups have an agreement with the pound. Of course it is still up to the pound as to whom they work with but the right should be there.

The silly part of this is that these are things we have been doing the above for fifteen years and THE GOVERNMENT HAS KNOWN AND ACKNOWLEDGED. But they have never bothered to change the Domestic Animal Act and the Code to reflect this.
We pleaded with them to do this with the recently passed Amendment but they ignored us.

Please make your voice loud so that this time they hear. So many animals are going to die.

Look at groups like Rescued with Love, New Beginnings and Victorian Dog Rescue.
They will no longer be able to save even healthy pets, much less the ones they focus on now.

And what happens if Starting Over Dog Rescue who run the north-west rescue route shut down. So very many dogs and cats are brought to Melbourne every week – close to 5000 per year. Rural pounds will not hold them.

NEW REGULATIONS PROPOSED - Kill those with insufficient quality of life and other reasons

We see a number of queries about the killing of dogs and cats as approved by the pound vet. Pet.Reform says that pound vets will decide who lives and who dies and refer to the Code of Practice for the Management of Shelters and Pounds drawn up in 2010 and commonly known as the kill Code.

It says in one section - the following must not be made available for sale - Aggressive, anti-social animals or an animal with known vices such as excessive barking or habitual escapees. It does not say they can be handed on to rescue to work with them because the rescue sector was still in its infancy 15 years ago, although even then we were taking pets like that.

Guess what, the escapee might have walked through a farm fence when alone for the day. The anti-social cat just wanted to be left in peace in their own home and appeared as aggressive in their cage. The excessive barker didn't like being tied up all day .

And in another section of the same Code it says animals MUST be killed 'because of disease, injury, behaviour, age, unsuitablity for sale'.
It gives a pretty free hand doesn't it.

And note in the same Code it does not say that a vet MUST be used for the killing. It's 'preferred'. And this was written at a time it must have been common knowledge that pounds like Mildura routinely shot pets at the tip.

Judd Falko cannot use his front legs properly, he runs like a rabbit, probably because someone swung him by his front legs as a puppy. The specialist/xrays/follow up confirmed he had no pain and nothing could be done. Judd is incredibly happy in his new home. Would a vet under these enforced rules allow him to live and to go to rescue?

The rescue sector saves, fixes what they can, and rehomes to kind people, or sometimes keeps in their long-term/palliative care program like our Safe Haven. This apparently is not acceptable.

What do y ou think?

18/02/2026

We are getting many queries. Why are we so upset? That non-rescue people don't understand. We live it, but it can be difficult to simplify.

Basically the rescue sector has evolved over twenty years. The government knows what we are doing, have always. We have letters dating back to 2010 from then head of the Bureau of Animal welfare Dr Steven Tate, Liberal-NP Minister Peter Walsh, from Labor Minister Jala Pulford, and others lauding what we do. All saying the same. "We know work has to be done to assist Community Fostercare Networks, to change the legislation, and we will do that".

What happened with legislative changes? Virtually nothing. They allowed us to have Section 84ys, take undesexed dogs and cats as agents for the pound, microchip dogs and cats to us, organise our foster carers. But what they did NOT do, was change the legislation to reflect the changes to animal welfare.

The Domestic Animals Act was written before the rescue sector existed - it has had more Amendments than the tax Act - but nothing definite and clear was done to make changes that affect us and allow us 'legal' rights. The Code of Practice for the Management of Shelters and Pounds was rewritten in 2010 and it is known as the 'kill code'. It basically gives pounds and shelters the right to kill any pet they like.

This is the legislation that the current Pet.Reform body is drawing on to bring us under their control. The result is when the government says it is 'voluntary' to join the Approved Pet Rehoming Organisation(APRO) body they are playing with words. They are taking away from us our work of the last decades, and denying that we were ever operating legally.

The Pet.Reform body say that we have no legal rights. This is because the government has chosen not to 'cover' our volunteer groups in the legislation. Instead they have used us; and they have used you, the public, who donate to us; and allowed us to rescue dogs and cats for the last decades. We have propped up a failing welfare system. Now, for their own purpose, they are denying our right to exist.

The result is so farcical that the Pet.Reform body is now saying that even if we join APRO we do not have the right to 'own' the dogs and cats that came to us, that the foster carer owns them and demand that we forward all our foster carers' details on to them. Shelters do not do this but it is asked of us.

If you join APRO you can have a Section 84y Agreement with a pound but it does not say you can take them undesexed and unchipped. This takes us back to the early days with Mildura Pound and watching so many animals die, often shot at the local tip, because we had no right to save them.

And if we do NOT join APRO, we are not allowed to microchip the dogs and cats in our group's name, we are not allowed to register them in our group's name, so we basically cannot exist.

Of course there are more points than this. But perhaps these are the ones that are simplest. We hope that you understand what is happening and like us, query why? How did Dash's petition to save needless killing end in the destruction of a sector. What will happen when all the dogs and cats we currently take are no longer saved. So many deaths to come.

The pups below look hopeful don't they. Well they died many years ago because we were not allowed to take them from the pound undesexed and the pound would not hold them and certainly would not pay to vetwork them.

Please don't send us back to those days. Support us.

Addresses to write to are available on Victorian Dog Rescue, Starting Over Dog Rescue, Rescued with Love and others. So many groups are already saying they will have to close down.

17/02/2026

So the APRO scheme rolls on. What amazes us is that rather than change a few clauses in the Domestic Animal Amendment to make it clear that what we have been doing for the past 15 years is legitimate the government chose to use the outdated Code of Practice and Domestic Animals Act against us. Written at a time we didn't exist, no government has ever bothered to amend it.
The Liberal Party did give us a definition of CFCNs in 2010 and a clause in the DAA that was to allow us to take undesexed and unmicrochipped pets from pounds but unfortunately it was so badly written the current Pet.Reform do not recognise it - even though the then Director of the Bureau of Animal Welfare confirmed its intentions. We have sent a list to the Minister of the number of times we have been told that we are allowed to take undesexed and unmicrochipped pets from pounds. But it doesn't count. What is white only remains white till today's government declares it one day to be black.

Rather then help us they proceed to make it difficult. If we join APRO we are supposed to provide the same information as pounds and shelters and also register our pets and record every move within the scheme in ways that shelters do not.

Where does the time to do this come from when we are on call 24 hours a day.

We have to provide foster carers' names and addresses to the government. How many foster carers will be comfortable with that.
Under their definition of the act the foster carer is the owner. We apparently don't exist. How can we operate like this?

We can't.

Attached is little Bianco Haliwell rescued by VicDRG from a pound at 16 with multiple issues but still desperately wanting to live. Now a pound vet can say no, he is to be killed.

Under the current Code of Practice to which Pet.Reform refer: animals MUST be euthanased becaue of disease, injury, behaviour, age or unsuitability for sale. It leaves it very open doesn't it.

If you believe these plans for the death of our sector - and of so many pets - are wrong we urge you to contact the Minister, Opposition Minister, your politician and whomever you think might care, and protest at the whole scheme and the lack of genuine consultation.

14/02/2026

Who would have thought the petition with the highest number of signatures ever presented to the Victorian Government, the petition that arose from the needless killing of Dash the greyhound by the RSPCA, would lead to the government introducing a scheme that will destroy the rescue sector, and lead to the killing of thousands more dogs and cats.

You may well ask how is this possible. Following the petition on poor Dash the government set up a Task Force supposedly to improve animal welfare in Victoria. Instead, its recommendations are being used to force rescue groups into their control.

For decades we pleaded with the government not to try to push us into the existing failing welfare system, but to amend the DAA (Domestic Animal Act) to fully incorporate us, as we did not exist when it was drawn up.
Instead they are using clauses in the antiquated DAA to force us into the current outdated mould.
The Animal Justice Party in particular has been a huge disappointment. They supported this bill when it was in Parliament, and talked down to us, saying we didn't understand that it was 'voluntary' to join the proposed scheme.

We understood completely what was going to happen and it is. We will lose our ability to function as we have been. How voluntary is it when the right to operate as you have for twenty years is taken away from you?

There will be more detail on this later but for now we are once again dumbfounded by the intention to destroy a sector that has grown organically because of the need.

And we ask who is pulling the strings here and what is the role of the RSPCA and Lost Dogs Home in this. We know we changed their world when we showed how it should be done.

02/01/2026

For the New Year an extract from Nathan Winograd - a reminder and a thank you to all those compassionate people out there....

To the people reading this — who spend days filling water bowls, scooping litter, cleaning runs, comforting frightened animals, walking dogs, racing to the emergency vet, advocating for a more compassionate world, and turning bathrooms and spare rooms into rehab facilities — you know the work we do is very serious. We deal with heartbreaking cruelty, neglect, and loss. Yet on any given day, we also witness profound joy: that first purr, the first time the tail comes out from under the dog and wags, the slow build-up of trust from an animal who’s finally safe and no longer ducks his head when you go to pet him, and the bittersweet relief of finding a loving home or release back to the wild. It’s important to take moments like these and let them remind us of why we do this work.
So to all who open their hearts and homes to animals in need: Happy New Year

13/12/2025

And this is how it is. There are approximately 175 rescue groups in Victoria and Starting Over Dog Rescue has expressed this so well. For every responsible rescue group Christmas is the worst time of the year. These are not products, not a christmas gift, they are dogs, cats, rabbits, guinea pigs all with their own personalities, good points and bad points, and reliant on you to be tolerant and loving. So many humans aren't. If you can't care for them and make a commitment don't get a pet.

08/12/2025

𝐑𝐄𝐌𝐄𝐌𝐁𝐄𝐑 𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐓𝐋𝐄 𝐁𝐎𝐖𝐈𝐄 - 𝐍𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧 𝐖𝐢𝐧𝐨𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐝.

Sure this is the United States but do you seriously think this never happens here. Still.

"This week marked the solemn anniversary of the killing of Bowie, a 10-pound puppy, by the Los Angeles County Department of Animal Care & Control.

After Bowie was surrendered because of a landlord’s no-pet policy, he sat at the pound for over three weeks, locked away from public view, in a cage by himself. Although scared, no one on staff socialized him. No staff member tried to get him out of his shell. No one showed him the compassion and kindness that studies prove make a life-and-death difference for shy little dogs.

Still, Bowie had an out. A rescue group came forward to give Bowie what staff at LACDACC would not: safety, love, and a loving home. It would be of no use. The same day that rescuers expressed interest in Bowie, the pound killed him without warning.

Instead of a new beginning, the little dog, who should have had his whole life ahead of him and posed no threat to anyone, was injected with an overdose of poison and turned to ash. He was barely 15 weeks old.

To make sure that never happened again, Bowie’s Law was introduced to require California “shelters” to notify rescuers before killing an animal. And given that such notifications are possible through shelter software already used by these facilities or available for free, complying would have required nothing more than a stroke on a keyboard: one click to notify rescuers that a life needs saving.

It was such a simple, commonsense law, it is astonishing that anyone would oppose it. But it was opposed by most pounds in the state and their enablers, such as Best Friends, the National Animal Control Association, and the California Animal Welfare Association, even if it meant killing puppies. And because of that opposition, it failed to pass.

Bowie; gone but not forgotten."

https://news.nathanwinograd.org/p/the-best-friends-cult?utm_campaign=email-post&r=malcw&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

17/10/2025

and so it continues on. The Lost Dogs Home seem determined to prove that Millie should be killed. The damage the are doing to that poor puppy...and little Murphy already dead. What are they trying to do to Millie and so many rescues have offered to take her. Shame on you LDH.

Milly is being held in a pen in the shelter. She is now on Pregabalin and Zylkene. These are drugs for anxiety.

She is 14 weeks old.

I have no words for this. Drugging a puppy, leaving it in a shelter after being in a foster home, and a behaviourists home - what on earth are they thinking?

Give the dog to Rescue. For crying out aloud.