Have your say on our draft Domestic Animal Management Plan (DAMP). Council has developed a new DAMP to help guide how we care for and manage cats and dogs in our community over the next four years. The draft was informed by valuable community feedback.

The draft DAMP is on public exhibition and open for community feedback. We want to hear from pet owners, animal lovers, and all community members.

Have your say by:

• Completing a survey (open until midnight Friday 12 December) (link below)
• Attending one of our community drop-in sessions.

We want to create a safer, more pet-friendly community for everyone.

Please read the draft DAMP and provide your feedback.

*If you would prefer a hard-copy survey to complete, please visit one of our hubs or libraries.

Come along to a drop-in session to learn more about the DAMP and to have your say.

Daylesford

Friday 28 November 2025

10:30 am to 12 pm

Council Chambers, 24 Vincent Street Daylesford

Creswick

Monday 1 December 2025

10:30 am to 12 pm

Doug Lindsay Recreation Reserve

Online

Wednesday 3 December 2025

6 pm to 7:30 pm

Clunes

Friday 5 December 2025

10:30 am to 12 pm

The Warehouse - Clunes (Library)

Trentham

Monday 8 December 2025

10:30 am to 12 pm

The Mechanics Trentham

Council has drafted its next Domestic Animal Management Plan (DAMP) 2026-2029. The plan describes how Council will meet its responsibilities under the Domestic Animals Act 1994. The plan also provides 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.

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 the current DAMP and planning, Council officers looked at trends in animal management across Victoria and used information from the 2023 Pet Census data.

The final draft of the DAMP will be considered for adoption in early 2026.