Monika’s Rescues: The No-Kill Interview

Interview by Claudette Vaughan

Monika Biernacki is an institution in Sydney. DoggieRescue.com is a registered charity dedicated to saving and re-homing dogs from Death Row. This No-Kill Organisation, thanks to its volunteers and the remarkable energy of Monika has been responsible for housing, feeding and caring for over 6000 dogs to date.

NOTE: All the Dogs you see pictured here are for sale. If you are interested please contact Monika for more information (contact details at bottom of this interview).

Abolitionist: What are some of the day-to-day challenges you face that’s associated with running a no-kill shelter Monika?

Monika Biernacki: The hardest thing is always managing the number of dogs that are coming in with the numbers that are going out and where do you keep them in the mean time? In Sydney it’s almost impossible to get a license to own a kennel. Councils do not issue permits for kenneling because of all the noise issues and so on.

So you are either locked into trying to buy an existing kennel somewhere out in the back of nowhere where people don’t come to you to get dogs or you do the fostering route. That means we are always looking for more foster carers to mind our animals until they get a home.

Abolitionist: Pirate, my first dog, had just had one eye removed when I picked him up from you. In those days you were working from your own home and the neighbours complained. Then the race was on to find alternative premises. I know it was a difficult period in your life. For people who aren’t aware of your work can you please fill them in?

Monika Biernacki: It all started in my own home with just saving a couple of dogs here and there. One time I took some dogs from a colleague that had council issues with these dogs. I said I would re-house them. I took them for a walk in the park and they ran up to somebody and startled them. Lo and behold the next thing you know was I had the ranger knocking on my door with a complaint. I explained to him what I was trying to do. I found out that him himself was very much involved with animal work and was trying to help me. Every week he went to the local dog pound and he photographed the “Pet Of The Week”, wrote a story and put it into the local rag. That helped lots of dogs find homes. He would always ring me and say, “Monika, if this dog doesn’t find a home, will you take her/him?”

So he started organising a way that I could take these dogs in – one dog at a time. Ofcourse it grew. Many years later where another colleague of mine, Corrine Dor who used to run Burwood No-Kill Pound, rang me and said she had a colleague who went out to pick out a dog and filled me in with the enormity of the problem e.g., the size of the facilities, the number of dogs that are killed just 7 days later. It was that that made me go there too and register dogs on a regular basis.
Sometime later, another colleague rang me to say we need help to get dogs out of Blacktown Pound. Until that time I wasn’t never able to get dogs out of there. It kind of was like a closed shop. With her involvement and her connection there we were able to save dogs out of Blacktown as well. That opened the doors to the largest pound in Sydney which between those two pounds account for 80% of impounded and also destroyed dogs.

Abolitionist: Why do you think these Councils have no aptitude for No-Kill solutions?

Monika Biernacki: There’s no doubt that no-kill is a very hard way to go. Councils are not interested in animal issues at any time because it is not revenue raising. From a Councils perspective, anything that is not income-producing, they don’t want to know about. That’s the reason why a lot of pounds are marketed onto third parties to manage. Councils are not interested in investing money or time if they don’t get income back – no matter what it is.

Abolitionist: Can you point out some of the things you’ve seen over there? I mean just by being here with you today and seeing all these dog’s beautiful faces and personalities, makes you realise how important they (and you) are in the world. What’s the solution?

Monika Biernacki: In the long-term it’s changing the awareness of the community’s care and understanding what responsibilities are. There needs to be a fostering of consciousness of what these animals needs are and to care for them.
We are not put on this world to destroy them. We’re here as a keeper, a carer for these animals. We need to do things alittle bit more appropriately. The No-Kill philosophies have come from overseas. I think they are still relatively embryonic in Australia. The welfare organisations that are dealing in this area are still too sceptical of {No-Kill} abilities obviously because it’s a much harder road. If you are going to cope with all the animals being dumped and you are not going to kill them, where do you put them?

The hardest thing is the balancing act of rehousing animals and the rate which they are coming in. Some animals are very rehomable. They just need a good feed, get rid of their fleas, be de-sexed and they can find a home very quickly. Some have gone through so many years of abuse, not dissimilar to people with mental health illness. They can’t be rehabilitated overnight. It takes time. It takes money. It takes care.

I believe the way forward is the volunteers. This is the only way you can get people who believe in what you are doing, who have that commitment and will give the time because you can’t afford to pay them for their service.

Abolitionist: Your place here {in Drummone} is remarkable for it’s organisation, skills, the volunteers and walkers of the dogs that keep the shop busy. What’s the best thing someone could do to save a pound animal? Starting a refuge up in their own home perhaps?

Monika Biernacki: Well you have to be very careful in your own home because people might experience what I experienced. You end up straight away with complaints. People always complain about dogs barking. It is very difficult in an urban environment. The only way forward is to get volunteers. You need to find a person that can attract the right kind of people with the right calibre and manage other co-ordinators and foster carers that will then care for the animals.

Once that kind of structure is in place you need other people who can keep the links going so people don’t disappear with dogs, so people don’t just get sick of the dog and want to return them. So not only do you need foster carers, you need many layers of people that will then co-ordinate and interface between carers, help them with any issues they might be experiencing and so on.

It is very human resource dependent to grow a no-kill organisation. I was very fortunate that I had a volunteer that was a human resources manager who saw my vision and had people skills sufficient to attract the right calibre of people so we could expand our organisation. Most organisations that start like myself, stay little, because it’s just too hard to expand it. There’s a capacity to spread yourself too thin and then you burn out.

Abolitionist: How are you funded Monika?

Monika Biernachi: It’s purely by donation. We are a registered charity. Like all other registered charities we don’t have tax deductibility so it’s extremely difficult if you can’t attract corporate sponsorship. It all just depends on donations and perhaps in the long-term bequests will keep us going. Basically it’s all achieved through the kindness of people.

Abolitionist: How many animals are there in care at the moment?

Monika Biernachi: About 100 dogs are in our care at the moment. They are all in foster homes. It’s a massive co-ordination network whenever someone wants to see a dog. The shop at Drummoyne acts as a ‘Meet and Greet’ place. Dogs do not get housed there. Volunteers are needed to drive and pick up the foster homes, bring them here. Volunteers are needed to run the shop, to return the dogs etc etc.

Abolitionist: Why is finding homes for large dogs such a nightmare?

Monika Biernacki: It’s a terrible situation. After all these years we have more rescue situations for little dogs but not so for the big dogs. This happens because there are so few people who know how to handle big dogs. You need really good carers who are familiar being around the big dogs and unfortunately not many people have these skills. Then there’s the issue of when large dogs jump your 6 foot fence or if they are aggressive with males.

I only have 2 carers that can take big dogs and again, it’s because they are on acreage. Not only do you need the facilities but you need the abilities and dog handling skills to do it. When you pick up dogs from the Pound, sometimes you don’t know what you are taking on. It’s only afterwards, by observing them in their environment and their responses and reactions, do you realise what they have been through and what’s happened to them.

Abolitionist: I once took a bashed Mastiff dog to the RSPCA, because he needed stitches. Because he was afraid, he snapped at the carers. The RSPCA then told me that he would have to be destroyed because he was aggressive. I did eventually find a home for him but my issue is: Anyone would snap if they were on foreign soil and didn’t know what was going on or was in pain or scared or lonely. These dogs aren’t given a second chance, aren’t given a rightful assessment of their specific requirements and needs and they aren’t treated as individuals. I mean, this is also a common story with pound handlers and I have heard it time and time again.

Monika Biernacki: It is. Yes you have to be able to see past the immediate issues these dogs are being confronted with. Groups like the RSPCA have limited time and resources so if there’s sometime that goes outside of these dogs basic requirements, then they are just destroyed. People still think that dogs from the Pound itself are nasty, ugly and can’t be rehabilitated. They don’t realise that these animals are mostly very sweet, very lovely cats and dogs that are in need of a home. We have a lot of caring people in the community that are completely unaware of this.

Abolitionist: A Pound animal never seems to forget that he/she’s been rescued…

Monika Biernacki: It’s like if we had been in a prison and someone saved us. You never forget. Dogs and cats are identical to us in that respect. They experience the other animals that are all around them at the Pound and for many, it’s a harrowing experience. They smell animals having been destroyed. They sense it in their own psyche and the stress of that apart from anything else they had in their life before they ended up at the Pound is just horrendous.

Abolitionist: How do you deal with ‘special needs’ dogs when they come in? What do you do with the blind, the deaf, the experimented-on dogs in the terrifying world of the lost and abandoned?

Monika Biernacki: I have quite a few in my care. I host them on my website in a special category. I explain some of their needs are medical or behavioural in the hope that we can attract the right sort of people for them. And we do.

It’s quite amazing sometimes when people come forward and will say right out, “Give me a dog that nobody else wants”. It’s a very, very touching thing when these people come along. Sometimes you just know when people walk through the door that they are gifted with special skills far above the average person. For example: their ability to be able to nurture an abused animal.

These dogs do get homes but the thing is to keep them in a happy home environment. So the trick is to try and keep these special needs dogs in nurture and you have them in your care, ready, for when that right person comes along. Then they can take them the next mile.

Some of these dogs who have been subjected to a harrowing experience can take years to recover. That’s the only way. Yes we have dogs with one eye, or they snap at men or children but we just try to find a home where they are not going to be exposed to the biggest of their fears, basically.

Abolitionist: You have touched on the subject of dogs that are anti-men. Do you think there should be educational programs to teach men how to interact with a living creature in a meaningful way and how dogs (and animals in general) are not there to be bullied/beaten/abused by men?

Monika Biernacki: A lot of dogs we see have been slapped around by men and that very obvious because of the dog’s reaction to male volunteers and the different responses of the dog. Dog abuse is like child abuse. Unfortunately some people are just too rough. They try and teach their dog by negatively hitting her/him and this causes the biggest problem by far. Unfortunately the dog becomes more and more hateful of men. Somehow, we just will have to become a more caring and nurturing society where people treat animals like children but having said that look how some people do treat their kids.

Abolitionist: This has been going on for years and years and nobody has bothered to address it. Why not target the breeders? In inner city offices it appears as if every second person breeds dogs on the side for a bit of extra income. What’s that about?

Monika Biernacki: As you know there is a movement in Sydney called “Say No To Animals In Pet Shops”. They say pet shops are not an appropriate environment to have live animals. There are so many animals “for sale” in the Trading Post or at the markets and that’s only the worst environment.

Somehow we have to educate people and I think we need to take a two-pronged approach.

First we need to educate people to demand certain quality assurances when they take an animal. You must ask to cite the vaccination certificate, the microchip that’s the law now. So many animals that we get are still un-microchipped and that law came in 1999. 80-90% of the dogs we get are not micro-chipped coming from sources, for the want of a better word, that are illegal. People need to demand quality checks and certificates with animals that they intend to buy. If they are given a purebred dog and are asked to pay that kind of money they need proof that is valid.

Abolitionist: But we don’t see pure breeds in pounds very often, do we?

Monika Biernacki: The one thing I’m seeing more in pounds over the last few years is, yes, we used to see all foxy type dogs and now we are seeing all the puppy-mill designer dogs. These crossbreeds, long coated pretty animals but people are prepared to pay lots of money because they look cute. These sort of dogs have their own issues and that’s what I’m seeing more and more of.

Again, they are being over-bred. They have health issues. They have behaviour issues. With puppy-mills they are treated just like farm animals. They haven’t had human interaction. They sit in a glass pen in a pet shop all day. They haven’t had that nurturing and love. They haven’t been with Mummy long enough and all those problems are the end product.

Abolitionist: Is it feasible to insist in law against crossbreeding when breeders know the cross will damage the animal’s health? e.g. Pug nosed dogs that can’t breath properly and eyes that pop out when given a fright etc.

Monika Biernacki: Certainly a lot of those breeds do have their own genetic problems.

Abolitionist: How can people reading this help you?

Monika Biernacki: Educating people to think before they buy and to put a lot of thought into being the guardian of a dog that will suit that person’s lifestyle. That’s what we try to do here at Doggie Rescue.

We match-make, or marriage – whatever you want to call it, find the right home for the right dog instead of “Mummie, Mummie, Buy me this one. This is a puppy and I want it”.

Puppies are like children. There’s a lot of commitment. A lot of hard work. Ask yourself: Is it really something you and your family want to engage in or wait a few years etc etc. Dogs are very needy. They are so close to young children and what their needs are. We just need to give that a lot more thought and not just jump in and buy a dog without thinking these things through or giving them as gifts.

Abolitionist: And cats?

Monika Biernacki: Cats are exactly the same. The problem is so much larger. There is so much breeding of cats and less control because it’s a cyclical, seasonal thing. The problem is so much more profound than what it is with dogs but if we slowly just chip away it’s the same thing as with dogs.

We have to show that animals need so much care and nurturing and de-sexing is the main thing to try and stop this over population. How do you stop this with all these backyard breeders around? That is the issue.

Another thing to do is offering discounted de-sexing. That certainly does a lot in terms of addressing the issues. In Sydney we still have the ethnic issues – some people just don’t believe in de-sexing and it’s hard to get over that.
A lot of ethnic communities do not accept de-sexing. They want to do what they did in their home country and they do the same thing here. With our type of climate it causes much higher populations and the cycle just goes on and on.

Abolitionist: How are you received when you arrive in your van to pick up dogs from the killing pounds?

Monika Biernacki: The attitude has changed a lot over the years because the type of people that can work there, I don’t know how they survive having to destroy animals on a daily basis. People can only handle that pressure for a certain amount of time. The attitude used to be “It’s much easier to give them the needle. Why do anything for them”. It existed a “Why bother?” attitude.

Because there are more and more rescue groups coming and knocking on their doors and they are seeing the dog and cat population moving out of there, they are starting to realise that well perhaps there is something in this way as well. Through the rescue groups coming in, the pound/council staff are changing, the people they employ are changing – but still there’s an awful long way to go. I can imagine the amount of money that is paid for these types of jobs is fairly minimal so therefore you do not get a high quality person that has a deep understanding of disease control and what animal issues are going to work there. So all these types of issues need addressing.

I think the only way that these type of pounds can survive is if they have volunteers from the local community work there and to get involved with the running of the organisation. The thing that’s needed is to keep things under a tight management plan using volunteers and caring people and to try and improve the disease regime.

The parva virus that kills so many dogs is alive and well unfortunately. Until we start looking at vaccinating all animals that arrive at the Pound we are not going to control a lot of the diseases we handle there and the sheer number of dogs and cats, of course. The transmission of diseases with cats is even worse.

The only way forward is to have more volunteers, more campaigns on getting these animals into a home. That can only happen by involving your local media groups and newspapers. Very often you’ll find these people are very empathic towards this. This in turn raises community awareness. The more community awareness into this, then the more money and the more volunteers you’ll get and then big changes can occur for the animals. That’s the only way to do it ---change the communities’ awareness.

Abolitionist: The Councils are only holding the animals for 7 days before they are destroyed. Surely there has to be a commitment to keep animals alive, not let animals die.

Monika Biernacki: That’s right. There has to be a partnership with the Council. They can get advertisement support for things they do. Getting the local media involved to support these animals that are going to be publicised and also a partnership with veterinarians. If you have a partnership with someone that is good at communications, putting these groups together – you’ll find it has an enormous result. We need the volunteers and the commitment to drive these programs and get everyone working for the same side.

Want to help Monika out or adopt one of her beautiful Cats or Dogs?

Check Out: www.doggierescue.com or phone 02 9712 2022 Mobile: 0429044484