Darcie is a  much loved family dog who was a gift to our 11 year old son for his 8th birthday. Darcie allegedly rushed at a resident on 2 occasions on the 1st May.

Darcie is desexed, registered, microchipped and is kept inside the house or when needed he is securely contained in an outdoor pen. He has never caused incident or trouble to other people or animals.

The council have provided us with 3 unclear still photos of a black dog. At the time of allegations we were overseas on a family holiday and had a house sitter stay at our property. We have provided council with still shots from our CCTV footage which shows Darcie either locked up in his outside pen or in the house at the time of allegations. Compliance officers have visited our property and inspected Darcie's secured cage and location of CCTV cameras and were satisfied.

We have never had any involvement with council for any other matters.

We have recently had to get RSPCA involved as a local resident continues to throw rocks at our dogs when they are behind our fence line. The resident provokes our dogs and teases them. We have even caught them taking videos of our 3 dogs whilst our dogs were secured on our property, resulting in Pakenham police being contacted. Council are not interested in any of this information. 

We have not received a caution, no infringement notices....BUT.... 3 months later my husband has been informed by email that Council are filing charges relating to multiple offences under the Domestic Animals Act 1994 (vic). How can charges possibly proceed if we have evidence and we were overseas at the time.

Under section 81 of the Act, Council have the power to seize a dog if an Authorised Officer of Council has formed a reasonable belief that a person has committed an offence under section 29. "In this particular case, multiple rushes against another person.  In this case, council will be exercisng this discretion to seize Darcie. If Darcie is not voluntarily given to Council, Council will be able to obtain a Search Warrant and attend with police".

We are deeply concerned that if Darcie is wrongfully seized by Cardinia Shire in front of our 2 young children it will leave long lasting pain, heartache and grief for us all. Darcie also has medical needs that require 24 hour care, he can not be left alone in a pound. 

We all understand that there are most certainly dangerous, harmful dogs in our community that do need to be impounded and destroyed and that this is absolutely paramount to our safety and we fully respect and support this action of seizure of these dogs. 

Help us to help our pug by signing this petition.