Council will be drafting its next Domestic Animal Management Plan (DAMP) 2025-2029. The plan will describe how Council will meet its responsibilities under the Domestic Animals Act 1994. The plan will provide direction to Council on how it will encourage improvement in responsible pet ownership across the Shire with a focus on reducing instances of nuisance animals and promoting animal welfare.

As part of the process of developing the new DAMP, Hepburn Shire Council will invite feedback from the community. The feedback helps us to determine the best way forward with addressing identified concerns, while continuing to be an inviting place for people with and without pets.

1. Dog attacks and aggressive behaviour remain a top community risk.

Serious and minor bites continue; mostly from a small set of repeat locations and poor pet ownership.

2. Pet ownership is rising.

More people are owning pets, but more are renting or in denser housing, creating demands for use of open space, education and help for renters. The greatest clusters are around medium-density and growth corridors. This is linked to more complaints and need for pet-friendly rental policies and education to reduce surrenders and nuisance.

3. Roaming and nuisance complaints (barking and wandering).

This represents a large volume of the workload, persistent but not often catastrophic.

4. Desexing and microchipping gaps.

New owners or residents who persistently fail to update microchips or details that lead to over breeding and longer impoundments.

5. Cat management (curfews, containment, nuisance and wildlife impacts).

Free-roaming cats create nuisance and risks to wildlife.

6. Breeding, selling, animal hoarding, welfare and neglect.

Illegal backyard breeding of dogs, including restricted breeds, and cats continue. These investigations are complex, time and resource heavy.

7. Pound and shelter capacity and animal welfare outcomes.

Neighbouring pounds and shelters are at capacity, and officers are often looking for alternatives which require greater travel, impacting officer availability to respond to other local law requests.

8. After-hours response and officer safety.

Officers regularly receive a number of calls outside of hours, increasing risks to their safety and wellbeing when they are required to respond.

9. Community expectations and customer experience.

Residents expect fast, fair, digital services and education, instead of enforcement.

10. Data quality, analytics, efficient policies and procedures.

There is data across multiple Council systems which can create gaps in data, patterns and inefficiencies.

11. Animals in emergencies.

Fires, floods, storms and heatwaves affect pets and owners’ evacuation choices. Owners are likely to leave later if they aren’t prepared to move their pets with pet-go kit.

Key issues

In reviewing Hepburn’s current DAMP and planning for the next DAMP, Council officers looked at trends in animal management across Victoria and used information from the 2023 Pet Census data.

The DAMP will be developed taking into account community feedback. A copy of the draft DAMP will be placed on Public Exhibition and open for feedback between 10 and 31 October 2025.

The final draft of the DAMP will be considered for adoption at the December 2025 Ordinary Council Meeting.