We have a big plan to save more lives.
But we need help now!
At the start of 1985 I founded SADS to address the shocking kill rate of dogs at Municipal Animal Pounds and so-called Animal Welfare Organisations in 
Victoria and to save as many of man’s best friends as possible. We are now on the threshold of an opportunity to significantly expand our reach. But we can’t do it without you. We must urgently raise $500,000 to further develop our own facility.
Over 33 years, through your loyal and generous support of our work, you have helped SADS save many, many thousands of dogs, and for the past 20 years, cats, from certain death so they may happily live out their natural life spans. We have loved and cared for them, provided needed expensive and ongoing veterinary treatment and kept them for as long as it took to find the right ‘forever home’, giving the assurance that we would always take them back if required, regardless of age or health.
SADS provides care where it is most needed and help that is often not available elsewhere. We are doing the work you believe in and that you have been so supportive of in the past; taking the abandoned, the sick, those whose owners have died or who for many reasons cannot keep them, or do not want to keep them.
Our story of saving lives
For the first 11 years we were solely reliant on foster homes to accommodate the dogs we saved. Then, at the end of 1996 the City of Stonnington offered SADS the contract to operate its regional animal pound. This enabled SADS to comply with new legislation which required animal organisations to be registered from a premises and to formally establish and put into practice the first “NO KILL” pound and shelter in Victoria.
As successful and desirable as this situation is, it became clear SADS needed to acquire its own property to ensure its autonomy and long-term future, including caring for the increasing number of animals who need training and respite in a different environment. To this end, in 2009 SADS purchased its own property in Yarrambat, on the outskirts of Melbourne.
The Yarrambat shelter is set on 33 acres of environmentally protected land with an existing permit for the holding of 190 dogs and 50 cats. It is fully owned by SADS and has enabled many more animals to be saved, cared for and rehabilitated whilst awaiting permanent adoption. However, the infrastructure is old and badly in need of redevelopment to provide better care for our animals and to comply with the code of practice for animal shelters.
This property ensures that even the most traumatised and very large active dogs can be saved due to adequate resources, such as “Scruff”. In addition to witnessing domestic violence, “Scruff” was badly abused, resulting in confused behaviour and a false display of aggression. He was under a year old and born gentle but his experience of brutality during his short life had left him uncertain about how to face the world. Today, after reassurance and training made possible by our Yarrambat facilities he is almost ready for adoption and will have a full and happy future.
“Bullet”, not a very reassuring name for a large and “over the top” dog with a gentle nature, needed time to “settle down”. Today, after a lengthy stay at Yarrambat, he is happily settled in his forever home. And the cats and kittens, come and come, particularly at kitten season. ”Kamala” the stray black mother cat under one year old with four kittens, dreadfully frightened and undernourished, represents the many young mothers that come year after year. The cattery at Yarrambat enables us to fulfil our charter of compassion.
Since SADS acquired the Yarrambat property it has developed architectural plans, negotiated the many and varied challenges of complex planning requirements and gained permission to proceed with the proposed redevelopment from VCAT. The permission from VCAT came with arduous prescribed conditions, especially regarding the control of noise. The construction of an expensive noise reducing wall has set us back both with impeding deadlines for kennel works to start and financially.
We won’t meet the deadline without you
This is where we find ourselves now asking for your urgent help. We need to raise an additional $500,000 to start the build of our first Kennel Block before our planning permit expires.
We simply cannot complete the build works by the building plan deadline without your support. Without the Yarrambat property many animals would not have a 
future and would not be delivered from fear and suffering.
Thousands of animals’ lives depend on this work going ahead
Please support our appeal by donating to enable the new kennels to be built. Your support is crucial to our efforts to save more unwanted and abused animals.
Yours most sincerely,
Pamela Weaver OAM
Founder and President