Our Family
For those of you who have not met us, we would like to introduce ourselves ... We are Mina & Anthony Melman, founders and managers of Staffy Rescue.
We are passionate people who believe in the rights of animals. We decided about seven years ago that it was time for us to do something (rather than just sit around saying "isn't it awful") about the plight of dogs in the pounds around Sydney. At the time, we started small, taking on one or two foster dogs ourselves at a time. We advertised our dogs on the PAWS website and managed to home many of them quickly, to some wonderful families. Our involvement rapidly grew as word about our little operation spread. Soon, we were up to about 7 foster dogs (plus our own) and had decided that it was time to get some help.
We put out a request for foster carers and, within a very short span of time, had a number of people volunteering to help. We soon realised that there are some wonderful people out there who want to help and just don't know how.
Our next step was to establish the Staffy Rescue website. This was definitely a worthwhile step. We have heard from many people who are regular watchers of our site and, the feedback that we have received has only served to encourage us to expand ever more. Soon we had foster carers, drivers and other volunteers queuing up to help us rescue dogs.
We have since stopped using foster carers for most of the dogs. Apart from small problems we encountered with foster carers, we also discovered that having all of the dogs together with us made it easier for people to find the right dog that suited them.
In the midst of all of this, we went through a massive, life changing experience, centring around the birth of our (now five year old) son, Jackson Carl Melman. We did not stop running Staffy Rescue and actually continued to expand, moving from a comfortable suburban home to a 5 acre property in Rouse Hill. However, towards the end of 2005, our family grew again, to include the twins, Benjamin and Sabrina. With three young children, we were forced to slow down for a little while, going from over 40 dogs to less than 20. It was still very hard. However, with some support from our wonderful volunteers, we managed to survive and soon got back into full swing again.
Now, more than two years after the birth of our twins, we are still managing to run our kennels and look after about 25-30 dogs at any one time. However, we have been finding it more and more difficult to keep up with the important task of maintaining our website and other administrative tasks.
We are also very passionately opposed to BSL (Breed Specific Legislation) and have been very outspoken about the unjust and pointlessly discriminatory laws in NSW, around Australia and around the world for a number of years.