In Victoria, all councils must develop a new Domestic Animal Management Plan every four years to set out services, programs, and initiatives that promote responsible ownership of dogs and cats in the community.

From 1 to 31 August 2025, we invited your feedback on the draft Domestic Animal Management Plan for 2026–2029.

The draft plan was shaped by the feedback we received in early 2025 when we asked our community, industry groups, special interest groups and key stakeholders to share what they felt should be prioritised in the plan.

Final plan adopted

The Domestic Animal Managment Plan 2026- 2029 was adopted at the November 2025 Council Meeting, subject to the following amendments:

• Change the cat containment implementation from 2028 to 2029, the final year of the plan.
• Change the support for cat owners with transitioning cats from free roaming to contained for improved cat welfare and protecting the environment from 2026 - 2027 to ongoing
• Include the investigation of options to ease the cost and improve compliance of introduction of cat containment, including mandatory desexing programs, enhanced enforcement, registration fee reduction for cats and ways of subsidising cat containment methods.
• Change the activity of strategic planning for dogs and people in open space evaluation to read “explore options and potential costs to better inform provision of open space across the shire for dogs and people”
• Before expanding the “for the love of paws” cat and dog education campaign provide a report to councillors on an analysis of community feedback to assess effectiveness and suggestions for improvements.