Corrine Daws: Making Sydney City No-Kill

By Claudette Vaughn

I have never looked at a dog that's come through my No-Kill Pound and thought to myself, "You are a horrible dog. You don't deserve a home. You deserve to die". -Corrine Daws created the first No-Kill Pound at Burwood, Sydney City.

Abolitionist: You alone turned Burwood Pound around from being a killing centre for pound animals to a successful no-kill shelter. Yet this would not have been achieved if it wasn't for your efforts 24/7. How did you get started?

Corrine Daws: When I was employed at Burwood shelter many years ago my job was as a cashier. After a couple of years of that I was invited to apply for a front counter position but the position came with a couple of things I wasn't quite sure about however I went ahead and accepted the job.

One of those things that bothered me was ringing up on the seventh day when the dog was due to be killed and giving the pound confirmation from the Council to euthanase the dog. Another thing was keeping a pound register of all the dogs that had been impounded. There used to be rows and rows, pages and pages of names of all the dogs that had been killed. At the end of the month I had to balance it up and pay the pound. This really got to me. I really got very distressed over it. I mean was I naïve? I had always thought that dogs that went to a pound were collected by their owners and then they went home again. Isn't that what happens to dogs who get lost? Don't they go home? But obviously they didn't and many dogs were being killed there.

I was pretty disgusted by this so one day went up to my boss and said, "Doesn't anybody try and find these dogs a home?" He said to me, "They're strays Corrine. Strays. No-body wants these dogs. What are we to do with them? We can't keep them."

What really started me on the way to building a No-Kill Pound was when a Labrador cross puppy arrived and I felt sure somebody would take it. I myself put an ad in the local newspaper and was inundated with people wanting this puppy. So it really started from there. After that experience I put dog notices in the local paper then in the Telegraph at my own cost. I did what I could. Sometimes I would get so desperate I'd be walking the streets putting notices up trying to find people to take the dogs in before the one week deadline was up.

It got to a point with my job that I wasn't sleeping well at night. I just thought, "Something more has to be done for these dogs". After a little while we got some publicity on the subject of rehoming and the thing just grew from there. The general manager, as he was then, when he discovered I was paying for the ads myself found out that it cost less to advertise the dogs than it did to kill them. He started to reimburse me and from there I was given a small budget to rehome the dogs. Since I was working full time at the time as well, it was really only weekends and after work I had time to rehome all of these dogs. As the rehoming process grew, it got harder and harder because I used to spend more time on the issue.

Even though when a dog only has seven days to live I wasn't allowed to rehome them any earlier and on the eighth day they were killed. They weren't kept any longer than that one day. So virtually I only had 24 hours to get them out of the pound. I put an ad in the paper on the eighth day and then just pray that someone would come and take these dogs.

Sometimes we were lucky and sometimes the woman from up at the pound used to take a dog from out of one cage, take her around the back and put her in another cage so that would buy me one more day. It took me 10 years before I could get sponsors and have enough money so we could have a budget and advertise the dogs ourselves. We'd get the dog vaccinated and the dogs were getting a home. It was really just at the end of my 10 years that dogs were getting euthanased at all and that was only if they were extremely aggressive dogs.

When we moved to Enfield that was when we officially became a No-Kill Pound. My boss gave me officially 3 weeks to rehome but more time if I needed it. In the whole 10 years that I worked for Burwood Pound I would say we didn't euthanase any more than 2 dogs a year. We became a charity and achieved charity status. We were called BARK which stood for 'Burwood Animal Rescue Kennel' but that's gone now {since new people came on board.}

Abolitionist: From your vast experience Corrine and for people reading this if they wanted to start up their own operation what advise would you give them?

Corrine Daws: I have found the smaller the pound the better it works because the dogs are not treated as a statistic in smaller pounds in general. People get to know the dogs better when the operation is kept on a manageable scale. I think a dog has more of a chance of finding a home or being kept longer if a pound is small. When there's a huge pound and with dogs coming in all the time it's very hard because you need to find room for all these dogs. I always feel for the people who work in the large pounds because when there's big volumes of dogs and traffic coming through it can make life very difficult.

Abolitionist: Were you happy to bring in volunteers at Burwood when you were there?

Corrine Daws: We used to have a lot of volunteers. That takes a lot of organizing and if the pound's not a No-Kill Pound it's hard on the volunteers because they would be walking the doors one day and getting to know and care for the dogs then one day they would come in and the dogs were gone. I have always thought if I didn't have a No-Kill Pound it would be too hard for the volunteers because here are a group of people who really love animals. It's very distressing to look after animals that you know are going to die.

Abolitionist: How did you find dealing with local government over the issue of pound animals and building a no-kill facility.

Corrine Daws: I always found the Council was very supportive with me. Infact they were really proud of having a No-Kill Pound. No council wants a pound where animals are being killed because it's not a good thing to do.

With my No-Kill Pound I worked two jobs, seven days a week and I never took a holiday. I'd continue to rehome dogs from my home. I didn't have a mobile or an answering machine. I used to walk around the house with a phone on a very long extension lead and I did that all weekend and for years on end.

To find people with that sort of commitment when people these days won't do anything unless it's for money, is rare. I did it because I was just so determined to do it.

Thinking back on it the stories I could tell you, well, all I'll say is it really knocked me around. The work is emotionally satisfying and emotionally draining all at the same time.

Holidays were out because if I had a holiday what would happen if I came back and the dogs were killed. I mean nobody else cared if they lived or died. It was only me doing it. If I had left the place it worried me that Burwood would go back to being a killing pound again.

Abolitionist: What was it in your background that lead you to make these tremendous sacrifices for pound animals?

Corrine Daws: If I had to put my finger on something it'd be I've always had empathy with animals. I've been lucky enough to put myself in these positions. I have a good sense with animals and always knew how they felt. Their eyes are the giveaways. You look into their eyes and you know how they feel.

Over the years I have met up with some lovely people. Some of my dogs now have the best homes ever. People have supported me and have donated and they are still donating to 'Monika's Rescues' where I work now. One small proportion of people still don't understand that if you adopt a dog it's for 15 years and over.

Abolitionist: What was your experience of rehoming special needs dogs and large dogs?

Corrine Daws: Well we rehomed everything. I personally found little old dogs easy to rehome. People seemed to like them. The oldest dog I ever rehomed was a 15 year old miniature Doxon. He was so old he could hardly walk yet he was easily rehomed. They had him for a couple of years before he died. Whenever we get a dog with three legs we'd get several people in who would really want them. Whereas the hardest dogs to rehome were the young males that were between 6-12 months that were naughty and active and jumping around and not trained. We'd have them sometimes for quite along time. We rehomed everything that came in eventually though.

Abolitionist: How about cats?

Corrine Daws: We didn't deal a lot with cats but we did rehome a few. I used to rehome cats from my home but cats take longer to place. This is because we are inundated with too many cats and kittens. There are so many cats dying in pounds today and everyone of them is beautiful. I love cats. People tend not to desex them and allow them to breed.

Abolitionist: What programs did you put in place when you were Animal Officer at Burwood Pound for BARK?

Corrine Daws: We had a discount desexing program that was popular. We had all the local vets doing desexing at discount prices and we'd give people who would come to the pound a Desexing Voucher.

Abolitionist: What's your opinion on feral cats Corrine?

Corrine Daws: I don't believe in that term "feral". There might be wild cats out there that haven't been handled but I don't call them "feral" cats. Feral to me are the large wild cats that live in the bush and kill wildlife. There are not that many around any metropolitan area. The cats that are already here are cats that have been born and have never been handled by people. They are very scared cats.

Abolitionist: What are you doing now?

Corrine Daws: When I left the Pound I went to work for Doggie Rescue in Sydney in the kennels. I did that for 6 months but I found that I was too small to do the heavy lifting that the job required so Monika gave me the magazine to do and I'm doing that now. We're growing and expanding and we've started up a sponsorship scheme in the magazine where people can sponsor a particular dog by picking her/him out on the internet. All the money goes towards helping the dogs find a home. We get stamp donations to save office costs so Monika has more money to put towards her huge vet bills and we're initiating all sorts of creative ways to grow the magazine by doing interesting follow-up stories on the dogs that are featured there. I'm trying to work as hard as I can to get more sponsors and more donations to give to Monika's Rescue so she can continue to keep doing the work she loves.

Abolitionist: The magazine is absolutely one of the best I've seen and chock block full of information.

Corrine Daws: You know what? I have never seen one dog not deserving of a home in all my time as a Animal Control Officer..

Abolitionist: Is that right?

Corrine Daws: Yes. I have never looked at a dog that's come through my No-Kill Pound and thought to myself, "You are a horrible dog. You don't deserve a home. You deserve to die". Sure, some dogs need specific homes. Not all dogs can go to just anybody that comes in with a family. Some dogs would prefer a quite home and some dogs would prefer an older person. Some dogs don't like to go with other dogs because they are a little jealous but I have never yet to meet a dog that's not homable.

Currently I'm doing a story on a woman that adopted a very old dog from us at Doggie Rescue. The dogs name was Herbert. I looked after him for a while as well and when the dog passed away recently this woman was devastated. I told her he was so lucky to have found her because he had had a hard life as he was skin and bone when we found him and not too well. She said to me, 'He wasn't the lucky one Corrine. I was the lucky one to have him for 2 years". And that's the kind of people that are out there.

Abolitionist: What's your experience with pitbulls coming into your No-Kill shelter?

Corrine Daws: We always rehomed them. I used to know the lady quite well down at the Pitbull Club and we certainly have seen some pitbulls come through the pound that have not been well handled by humans. Some pitbulls were scarred all over from top to bottom and one in particular was in a terrible condition when we got him yet we rehomed him. I personally found them rather nice dogs. They were very sensitive dogs. They didn't like other dogs a lot of the time but I've seen chawawas that don't like other dogs. In fact one of the most aggressive dogs I ever met at the pound was a chawawa and we rehomed him without a problem. He went to a loving woman who understood he had been cruelly treated and he turned out to be a wonderful little dog in the end.

I think what we have to do is make dogs not as easy as it is now to purchase them. I think we need to monitor dogs not just sell them to the first person with a plastic card in their hand. We need to know that these puppies being born are going to good homes and that's where everything starts. They don't ask to be born but once they are born at least ensure they are going to a good home and that there's someone there to love them because they are really wanted. And we have to start with these dogs being abandoned. We have to start at the initial stage and we have to make sure that when people are finding homes for these puppies the very best home is found for them. There should be legislation where pounds have the right to say "No" to people they deem unsuitable. We have to make that a reality.