I went to a wonderful celebration last week: the 4 Paws 20th birthday party at Headland Golf Club.
It was a whole lot of fun and a great tribute to Julie Penlington and her gang of volunteers who rescue, foster and rehome dogs, cats and birds and save them from getting ‘the green dream’.
By the way, I do know where most of the birds ended up: at my joint, thanks to Old Mate.
I must say, it was a wonderful day.
Thanks to all the wonderful volunteers – boss Julie and everyone involved all do it for free.
They are well supported by the Nicklin Way Vet.
A true testament to what they achieve in the community and how much respect they have was the fact that Deputy Premier Jarrod Bleijie and Mayor Rosanna Natoli were in the room, helping them celebrate.
Sorry to repeat myself, as I have written about this before, but it is so important: with a bulging population, combined with homelessness and a shortage of rental properties, sometimes the first casualty is the family pet.
I can understand circumstances sometimes offer no solution.
My real problem is that folks get a pet and then decide it barks, meows or squawks too much and they get rid of them.
Pets are not handbags: you can’t just drop them off at the op shop.
Sadly, that’s what happens: the pound, Sunshine Coast Animal Refuge or 4 Paws become the pet op shop.
The difference, of course, is that we are talking about a sad end of life if these organisations didn’t exist.
And I guess my point is, what makes 4 Paws stand out from many organisations is that there are zero people on the payroll.
My first knowledge of 4 Paws was when we had our beloved family pet pass on and Old Mate came home with a toy poodle.
We had gone from bull terrier-staffy-cairn terrier-cross to a bloody toy poodle.
At first look, I wasn’t overly impressed.
His name was Barklay and he was an awesome little dog that lived until he was 17.
If not for 4 Paws, he would have been in the dog playground in the sky way earlier and I would have never had the pleasure, love and companionship he gave me in truckloads.
As they say: “The greatness of a nation can be judged by the way its animals are treated.”
We have some work to do!
Ashley Robinson is chairman of Sunshine Coast Falcons and Sunshine Coast Thunder Netball and a lifetime Sunshine Coast resident.
The opinions expressed are those of the author. These are not the views of Sunshine Coast News’ publishers.
