And you are in the country. Country people in Australia are horrible,
especially about animals and the environment. In their opinion, stuff is
there to be used, and if you don't like it, who do you think you are trying
to tell me what to do? The best thing you can do Britta is keep your eye
open and rescue any you can. Rural people here have the same attitude to
most animals. Occasionally you find a good one who looks after their own,
but heaven help any animal who ends up where they aren't meant to be. I have
fortunately learnt better, my family was always kind to animals, but they
were considered tree hugging hippies for that reason, and even then our dogs
and cats were allowed to free range. While living in the country I've had
dogs poisoned deliberately by people who knew us, knew our dogs, knew they
weren't dangerous, or horse and cattle killers. They seemed to just enjoy
killing them. I've also had cats run over, again by people who knew us, knew
our cat, and deliberately swerved to hit it. Again just to enjoy killing
things. I've seen people kill a mother roo, to 'get a baby joey for my
daughter' and of course the animal subsequently died. All my animals apart
from the Siamese are from families like this. Both my dogs came from
situations where the animals were being bred for cold hard cash, and we were
given them as they were not expected to survive, as they were the runt of
the litter. I doubt any of their siblings will reach old age. It will take a
loong time for this to change. However I have been very much encouraged by
the city we now live in; hardly any animals wander, the council is very pro
active on pet care and they are even bringing in voluntary and eventually I
think compulsory cat registration; Dog rego is mandatory and $20 for
neutered dogs, but $120 for unneutered dogs. I expect they will do similar
for cats. They also are making the newspapers join in; the classifieds have
recently put a note in the pet column saying that only registered animal
breeders may advertise; they haven't enforced it yet but it's a start. So
things hopefully will change. But it will take a lot, this attitude of
disrespect for nature, animals and also indigenous people (you will come
across that no douct) is terrible and very ingrained into the Australian
identity. Just keep showing your example to those you come into contact
with, it's all you can do. Expect to have animals dumped on you once people
discover you care about animals though...