Following on from our previous update “Questions raised after accessing Council Impound Registers via GIPA - Holiday period 2016/17”, we have received a response from Council, which stated: “…[Council] can confirm that no animals were impounded during the period 25/12/16 - 3/1/17 [holiday period of 10 days]... - Several lost stray animals were returned directly to their owners, rather than entering the facility. - There was no pickup of lost/stray dogs. - There were several attacks attended by staff but there were no dogs located at the time. - There were no stray animals picked up from vet clinics.” Receiving this response has raised further queries: Council's email states that "several lost stray animals were returned directly to their owners rather than entering the facility." - Does that mean that every owner was able to be contacted and was able to immediately come and collect their animal from GRAS? Given the fact that there was only one staff member on duty and they were at GRAS for only between 2 to 4 hours per day, as Council stated in previous emails. - Is this a new policy of Council to return animals directly to their owners rather than have them entering the facility? How does this exactly work? - Is this a policy that is applied now, so that if an animal is micro-chipped and the owners are contacted and are coming to pick the animal up, the animal is not entered on the register and does not enter the facility? - Where does the animal wait? - Do people have to pay fines if their animal is at GRAS but does not enter the facility? If they still pay fines how is a record kept of the fines that have been paid and to which animal it was applied too? - Is there a record of the "several lost stray animals"? - How does this affect the statistics that are sent to the Office of Local Government? In Council's email it states "There was no pick up of stray/lost dogs." - Does that mean that the "several lost stray animals" were left in the deposit pens and that they were all micro-chipped and registered so that they could be returned to their owners without "entering the facility"? We are waiting for a response to these queries from Council. *Please note: We should have stated in our previous update that the Impound Register only commences when GRAS re-opened to the public, not “entries into the Register only commence upon the return of the Animal Welfare Supervisor”. EDIT: We think it's great if Council Pounds can directly contact the owner and the owner can immediately come and collect their animal. Then the animal does not have to enter the facility. However our experience is that this does not generally occur. One incident that occurred was a Jack Russell dog that was impounded over the weekend. He had a collar with a tag with the owner's number and the vet's number on it. It would have been so easy to have contacted the owner and say that their dog was at Wagga Pound and could be collected on Monday during public opening hours. The owner was not contacted. It was only when they phoned at 12.30pm Monday afternoon, that they were informed that their dog might be there. They also paid the fine. Another example was the Maine Coon cat in a crush cage marked feral in the cattery. This cat had not been scanned. It was because Myriam went to the office and said that she thought the cat did not look feral and could barely move in the crush cage, that she was given permission to take it out of the crush cage. When the ranger chose to scan the cat it was a micro-chipped de-sexed male. Our query is that over 30 animals were entered on the Impound register prior to the holiday period, (in the same time frame of 10 days) and over 30 after the holiday period, yet no animals are entered on the Impound register for the holiday period? From our observations sadly, many of the animals arriving at Wagga pound are not micro-chipped, yet in the holiday period the "several lost stray animals" were all able to be returned to their owners. There were no stray animals without microchips? What we find as one of the saddest things in pounds is that so many animals look like someone's pet yet are never claimed by their owners.