Benefits of de-sexing your pets
Your pets are less likely to suffer from disease and certain illnesses, such as:
- Female – mammary cancer and uterine infections
- Males – prostate problems
Helps prevent roaming and injury:
- Females – prevents mating behaviour and false pregnancy
- Males – reduces behavioural problems such as roaming, aggression and urine marking
Prevents unwanted litters (Dogs can become pregnant by 6 months of age)
Longer life – research shows that de-sexed animals can live longer.
You save money on registration, it’s cheaper when your dog is de-sexed!
How many dogs can I have?
Under Councils Local Laws you are only allowed 2 dogs on a property.
To keep more than 2 dogs you will need to apply for an Excess Animal Application.
*Please note if you live in a Conservation Planning Area you can only have one dog per property.
Schedule 2 And 3 Keeping Of Animals (1.0 MiB)
Responsible Pet Ownership
A responsible pet owner is someone who;
- Provides adequate food and water, shelter and bedding, stimulus and a suitable living space for their pet.
- Ensures their pet has an appropriate sized and adequately fenced enclosure that your pet cannot escape from.
- Keeps their pets enclosure clean and sanitary.
- Exercises their dog daily.
- Keeps their pet up to date for vaccination and worming.
- De-sexes their pets and ensures their dog and cat are micro-chipped.
- Keeps their dog registered with Council annually. Ensures their dog wears its council identification tag and cats collars with bells and ID tag, with phone numbers.
- Walks their dog on a leash (unless in an off leash area), picks up after their dog and disposes of it correctly.
- Doesn’t allow your pet to wander
- Ensures their animals don’t create nuisance to neighbours or other community members
Keeping your pets safe
- Identification – Ensuring your pet always has a collar with its registration tag ensures your pet can be easily identified and higher chance it will return home safely. In case your pet’s collar is lost, microchipping is just as important for your pet returning home safely.
- Dogs under effective control – This means that dogs has to be walked on a lead by a person capable of controlling the dog (unless you are in a designated dog off leash area). Did you know that there is only one off leash exercise area in Douglas Shire? It is at the southern end of Four Mile Beach. All other areas in the Douglas Shire, dogs need to be on a leash or they are considered to be not under effective control and fines can apply.
- Containment – Dogs and Cats need to be confined to your property within a suitable enclosure. You must not allow your animals to roam as this can cause a nuisance to the neighbourhood. You animals are more likely to get injured by fighting, hit by cars, more likely to pick up diseases/parasites or can get lost.
- Always supervise you children around pets – It is very important to teach your kids know how to act around the family pet and also what to do around unknown pets/animals. A number of injuries both mild and severe occur because kids can’t read the warning signs the pet is trying to show them. They need to always respect pet’s personal space no matter how good you think your pet is.
Happy and healthy pets
- Grooming and teeth care – there are a variety of breeds with different types of coats, long, short, soft, thick and thin. The level of grooming will depend on the breed! Dogs should be washed weekly, brushed daily, nails clipped and ears cleaned, vets and mobile groomers can assist with this if you are unable to do yourself. There are many things on the market that you can provide your pets for them to chew on to clean their teeth.
- Vaccinations and worming – When you purchase a dog or cat ensure you obtain a vaccination certificate to ensure its vaccinations are up to date. Your pets should also have regular worming treatments and have a check up with a vet once a year to ensure they are healthy and vaccinations are current. Preventive vaccination and medications, costs a lot less than trying to cure these issues after your dog has contracted something and are not always successful.
- Ticks and Fleas – Paralysis ticks can be fatal to your pets, however there are easy solutions to protect your pets. There are various medicated chews that protects your pets for 1 or 3 months against fleas and ticks.
- Entertainment – There are various toys and different things on the market to entertain your pets. Dogs are not happy to sit in the backyard and do nothing. They need to be walked, socialised, provided with things to play with and chew on. Many behavioural problems happen when a dog is bored like barking, chewing on things you don’t want destroyed, digging, escaping for their yard and many others. Click here for more information.
- Skin Problems – Living in Far North Queensland can cause problems with your pets skin. Often there are simple solutions to fix skin issues such as bathing your dog weekly in medicated soap or it may involve antibiotics. There are certain plants that can cause rashes and irritate your dog’s skin, removal or barricading off these plants can solve the issue.
- Wandering Pets – Roaming cats and dogs are a significant source of nuisance in the community. Council strongly encourages people to either be a responsible owner and keep their dog or cat inside in a suitable enclosure on their property or to re-home their pet by contacting a shelter or finding another responsible family to care for them. Do not dump or release your pet into the wild! By dumping or releasing your pet into the wild they can become feral, and cause many problems for the environment, may struggle to survive and suffer unnecessarily.
- Barking Dogs – All dogs bark! However sometimes the barking can become an issue in the neighbourhood. For tips and tricks to prevent a dog from nuisance barking.
Dog Barking - Responsible Person Fact Sheet (708.0 KiB)
Do you know how much it costs to own a dog?
When deciding to get any pet, you should do some research on what that pet requires, such as;
- Bedding, food, shelter and suitable enclosure size
- Vaccinations and treatments
- What the initial costs are and what the ongoing costs will be
- Which dog breeds would best suit your family
Find out the costs here!
Health and Behaviour
Which dog is for me
The Smart puppy and dog buyers guide
Are your dogs microchip details up to date?
To update your details on your dogs microchip can be done by contacting the vet who administered it or if you don’t have the details of who your dog’s microchip is rec-ordered with you can contact one of the providers below.
Central Animal records
www.car.com.au
Phone: 03 9706 3187
or
AAR – Australasian Animal Registry
http://www.rasnsw.com.au/animal-registry
Phone: 02 9704 1450
