What colour are you? Are you "purple", "orange" or "green"? Come "Meet your Match" at Animal Aid and find out what colour suits you best! Just like every person has a colourful person-ality, every dog has a colourful canine-ality. The Meet Your Match Canine-ality™ Adoption Program reveals both a dog’s and an adopter’s true colours so that you can make a more informed choice about which is the most appropriate pooch for you to bring home. Did you know that every year; around 500 thousand animals enter animal welfare agencies across the nation? A variety of reasons are given for surrender but some of the most common are behaviour related due to poor breed choice and a lack of understanding of what their needs will be.

That's why Animal Aid is launching the Meet Your Match Canine-ality Program. This program tests each dog's personality and matches it to the expectations and lifestyle of potential adopters.

We start with a Canine-ality behaviour assessment of each dog and a brief survey of each adopter's expectations. The result is a colour-coded matchmaking system that brings compatible parties together, reducing the number of adopted dogs being returned to the agency because they are not a good fit.

For some people, visiting a shelter to adopt can be a very emotional and challenging experience, but to some extent the Meet Your Match system removes this factor. Adoption becomes an easier and more practical decision, rather than just an emotional one.

This unique program, which is owned and distributed by ASPCA®, is proving very popular. So far we have found that potential adopters have responded very positively to the system and can see and understand the thinking and logic behind it.

If you are considering adopting a dog, take advantage of this personalized matching system and come and Meet You Match at Animal Aid. You can visit us at the shelter between 11am and 4pm daily or check out our great new website www.animalaid.com.au or call on 9739 0300.

Over ten weeks have passed now since the tragedy of Black Saturday unleashed its fury on an unsuspecting Victoria. All the signs were there for an extreme fire danger day, but I don't think that anyone truly believed that it would be as severe as the day turned out to be.

The call for our assistance is slowing to a trickle now. It seems to be that the main requests for support are for the large animals and as long as we have the resources we will help if we can.

I need to update you on the progress of a couple of the many evacuees that have been staying with us, either in our clinic, shelter or boarding facilities.

Alley is still with us and Happy has just had another operation on her tender little feet and is in and out of our hospital as she requires her bandage changes and operations. she is coming along well, she is such a little battler.

Stardust is still with us but should be going home soon to his own property with his Dad while they plan to rebuild.

All of our other burns patients are home and doing really well, Garfield, Taylor, Boefie, Cinders to name a few.

It is hoped that we will never have to endure a disaster of this scale ever again. As part of our recovery effort we have plans to develop and acquire the necessary tools that will help us to respond to a variety of disaster scenarios with increased speed and efficiency.

Thank you once again to everyone who has been involved in this remarkable effort, we are very grateful to you all. You have helped us to be the vital resource that we were (and still are) during the Victorian Bushfire Relief effort and to be so much more than just a shelter.