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Long rows of cages line a corridor, the wind whistling through gaps in the metal roof as our arrival sets off a chorus of barking.
This is the notorious A Block in the Lost Dogs’ Home, which houses 54 dogs and is freezing in winter and stiflingly hot in summer.
Tanya Drakopoulos, chief executive of the Lost Dogs’ Home, warns that A Block is a confronting sight and not a place visitors are usually shown.
She wants to be transparent about the challenges the Lost Dogs’ Home is facing as it waits to find out its future.
“It’s open to the elements, and the issue as well is having dogs facing each other and having so many in the one area,” she says of A Block. “You’re just creating more risk of disease and behaviour deterioration, and there’s no outdoor access – every dog should have outdoor access.”
The facilities at the Lost Dogs’ Home are no longer fit for purpose, but Drakopoulos can’t upgrade the ageing and temporary infrastructure because its future hangs in the balance.
In 2020, the state government said it would compulsorily acquire the Lost Dogs’ Home’s site for future flood mitigation as part of the Arden Precinct.
However, six years on, the home does not have a new site to move into or any indication from the government when this will happen.
A spokeswoman for the government declined to comment on where it would move the home or why there had been a six-year delay.
“We will continue to work with the Lost Dogs’ Home to find a long-term solution so they can keep doing their important work,” she said. “The acquisition of the Lost Dogs’ Home has been part of a long-term strategy for the Arden precinct.
“Since 2014, we’ve provided the Lost Dogs’ Home with investment of $229,700 for site investigations and alternative locations and will continue to support their essential work so they can continue to care for and rehome Victorian pets.”
The Lost Dogs’ Home began operations at the North Melbourne site in 1913, when it was known as the Temporary Home for Lost and Starving Dogs, and started serving as a pound for local councils two years later.
Seventy years later, in 1985, it began taking in cats, and now cares for 22,000 lost, abandoned, surrendered and seized dogs and cats each year in agreements with 15 metropolitan councils.
The site is spread across 20,000 square metres in North Melbourne, and volunteers are able to walk the dogs at the North Melbourne football ground.
Drakopoulos says growing demand for the Lost Dogs’ Home’s services means it won’t be enough to replace “like for like”, with the shelter experiencing a 160 per cent increase in pet surrenders in the past four years.
The Lost Dogs’ Home is bursting at the seams of its current location, and with the loss of the football ground would require a 30,000-square-metre site and an estimated $100 million for construction.
Drakopoulos says that without any plan for The Lost Dogs’ Home relocation it has to keep investing scarce charitable funds into maintaining ageing infrastructure.
She walks through the tiny operating theatre, which performs thousands of operations each year on pets, and past the temporary building that serves as a staff break room.
“It’s hard to improve animal welfare with the facilities that we’ve got,” she says. “Our staff and volunteers do the best they can in the situation they’ve got, and there’s no animal that’s dirty or uncared for, even though their conditions aren’t great.”
Drakopoulos says every dollar spent prolonging the life of a site that is set to be decommissioned and demolished is a dollar the Lost Dogs’ Home can’t invest in animal welfare, prevention or community services.
The initial Arden Structure Plan, published in 2022, said the site would be used for an outdoor community sports area with a pavilion, playing courts and playgrounds, and that the Lost Dogs’ Home heritage building would be repurposed.
But in tender documents issued in 2024, the site was earmarked for “water management” – or flood mitigation. The low-lying Arden area is flood-prone along the banks of the Moonee Ponds Creek, and the shelter has been flooded before.
Drakopoulos says time is running out for the Lost Dogs’ Home, and the government needs to act.
“It’s not an inviting place for the community to come in to adopt,” she says. “It’s not a nice place for our staff to work, and they come in every day. They’re in the elements of all the weather.”
Drakopoulos says both her staff and the animals deserve better.
Opposition planning spokesman David Southwick says the Arden Precinct Structure Plan has been sitting on the shelf of the planning minister for almost a decade, leaving homes unbuilt and creating uncertainty for communities.
“A Liberal and Nationals government will urgently get things moving for the Arden Precinct with a view to providing certainty for the future of the Lost Dogs’ Home in metro Melbourne and more homes built to tackle the housing crisis,” he says.
The last stop before leaving the Lost Dogs’ Home are the pens where dogs wait for adoption.
A ginger and white dog named Nutmeg wags her tail enthusiastically, and a row of hopeful dogs follow any departure with their eyes. Someday, though no one knows when, they will all be leaving too.
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