What is behind this sudden influx of dogs?

Gosh, I wish I knew.

You know, I think this happens from time to time.

We get our referrals from police, from Women's Refuge, hospitals, victim support and various other agencies.

And I think...

We'd been quiet for a little while, and then suddenly everything just kind of went bananas, and we ended up with the 17 dogs coming in.

We also have another six or seven dogs on the wait list right now, and I guess that's really pushed our ability to house those pets to capacity.

let's let's help our listeners learn about the service because people may not be aware tell us about the work that you do

You might be surprised how frequently people threaten to get rid of the pet or give it away in order to control someone in an abusive relationship.

I don't have a fixed opinion on jail sentences or things like that in regards to this, but what I do have a really strong opinion on is bringing the issue of pet abuse as part of family violence more into the light, and government actually putting in protections or, and strengthening protections for family pets because we know that we have the highest reporting rates of family violence in the OECD, and 63% of Kiwi households have a family pet.

So I think, you know, just what we're seeing at Pet Refuge is really the tip of the iceberg of, of what's going on behind closed doors with abuse and pets being involved.

We, we've advocated across multiple parties for these kinds of things, just to bring the issue more into the public view, but also government view.

But I think they also have obviously formulated their own policy as well, and I think hopefully they'll continue to, to broaden out what they're doing in this particular policy in the terms of wider animal welfare as well.

But that's a whole nother topic.

[laughs]

The pet shelter has good security, including cameras and alarms, and the location's stayed a secret so far, but it's getting harder to keep it that way.

So can you talk through that issue of pets being used as a tool of coercion in family violence situations, and also the kind of scale of the issue more broadly of pets in family violence situations in New Zealand?

Absolutely.

So we know from New Zealand research, but also international research, that around 53% of women delay leaving family violence out of fear for the safety of their pet.

We also know through New Zealand research that around 23% of women who have pet abuse as part of family violence have a pet killed by the abuser.

It is a very common form of coercive control.

Abusers know that the pet is often the source of comfort for them the family member or the children.

And so they deliberately target that pet because they know it is one of the ways they can gain control over the people that they're abusing.

I'm also thinking specifically, could you talk us through what the ACT Party has proposed and what your organisation thinks of that?

How often does it stop people actually walking out the door?

Yeah, we know that 53% of women delay leaving violence out of fear for their pets.

We also know that around 24% of women who have pet abuse as part of family violence have a pet killed, and often that can be in front of their children as well.

So that causes lifelong trauma.

Absolutely.

People never get over that.

It's something that they'll take with them forever.

You must hear some awful stories.

like

you could look at, you know, low mood, losing interest in things, sleeping, fatigue, difficulty concentrating.

But I'm not really sure if that always helps people to kind of think, oh, yeah, I'm depressed.

Perhaps it's more useful to think of it like, It's going to look really, really different depending on who's experiencing it.

For some people, no one on the surface would ever know, you know, like, or it might just be someone really, really close to them.

might start to see some of the cracks.

You could be looking at anything from intense irritability, difficulty keeping up with the job, not enjoying things that used to give them lots of joy.

So like, what actually are the causes of depression?

Mm

... changes in neuroplasticity.

There's...

But there's no way at, at this point in time that...

We haven't got, like, a clinical cutoff where we can go, "Well, right.

Okay, like, you've got this much neuroinflammation.

You're at this risk of developing depression." And something that I've been thinking very deeply about in recent years is your biology, particularly when it comes to mental health, isn't deterministic.

Mm.

Like is it kind of it's showing up in so many different areas of your life or it's impacting kind of like your quality of life? I think the thing

is that's really hard about thinking about what it might look like in someone's life is it's because everybody experiences depression so differently, it's going to look so different depending on who is experiencing it, right? So there are lots of things like you could look at, you know, low mood, losing interest in things, sleeping, fatigue, difficulty concentrating.

But I'm not really sure if that always helps people to kind of think, oh, yeah, I'm depressed.

Perhaps it's more useful to think of it like, It's going to look really, really different depending on who's experiencing it.

For some people, no one on the surface would ever know, you know, like, or it might just be someone really, really close to them.

might start to see some of the cracks.

You could be looking at anything from intense irritability, difficulty keeping up with the job, not enjoying things that used to give them lots of joy.

So like, what actually are the causes of depression?

Mm

... changes in neuroplasticity.

There's...

But there's no way at, at this point in time that...

We haven't got, like, a clinical cutoff where we can go, "Well, right.

Okay, like, you've got this much neuroinflammation.

You're at this risk of developing depression." And something that I've been thinking very deeply about in recent years is your biology, particularly when it comes to mental health, isn't deterministic, is definitely a part of the puzzle.

Mm.

Things are going well at your end then.

Yeah, I mean, it's amazing to get that feedback, and I think that it's a real testament to the team at Kids Can and the work that they've put in, and I guess the way that we actually run that particular food programme, which is quite separate from the school lunches, and it's a bit more bespoke in the way that we do it, but we're super proud of it.

Is it more basic stuff than that?

Well, what we do is essentially we've worked with a group of nutritionists, the Heart Foundation in the past, to develop a range of nutritious, wholesome, you know, kid-friendly, I guess, recipes for children under five.

Those ingredients for those recipes are delivered on a weekly basis regularly.

through our supply partner, and they go to each individual centre, and then within the centre, depending on the menu that they've chosen, they will prepare and cook those recipes.

A lot of them are hot meals, but they're prepared from scratch using the ingredients on site.

And I guess the point I would make is, you know, we're talking about a lot smaller kind of roll numbers.

Things are going well at your end then.

Yeah, I mean, it's amazing to get that feedback, and I think that it's a real testament to the team at Kids Can and the work that they've put in, and I guess the way that we actually run that particular food programme, which is quite separate from the school lunches, and it's a bit more bespoke in the way that we do it, but we're super proud of it.

Is it more basic stuff than that?

Well, what we do is essentially we've worked with a group of nutritionists, the Heart Foundation in the past, to develop a range of nutritious, wholesome, kid-friendly recipes for children under five.

Those ingredients for those recipes are delivered on a weekly basis through our supply partner and they go to each individual centre and then within the centre, depending on the menu that they've chosen, they will prepare and cook those recipes.

A lot of them are hot meals, but they're prepared from scratch using the ingredients on site.

And I guess the point I would make is, you know, we're talking about a lot smaller kind of roll numbers.

You're talking 30 to 50 kids as opposed to, you know, hundreds, potentially thousands of kids.