Charity partnership may save lives of over 300 dogs a year

The lives of more than 300 dogs in Clare could be saved every year under a partnership announced on Monday. Charity Dogs Trust has joined with the county’s dog pound in an arrangement that dog warden Frankie Coote has described as “historic”.

 

Dogs Trust started a three-month project whereby pound dogs in Wexford, Offaly and Clare local authority pounds will be health-checked, receive a primary vaccination and be microchipped prior to rehoming. The purpose of the project will be to enhance the potential for these dogs to be rehomed and to assist Dogs Trust in developing an ongoing strategy for reducing the numbers of rehomeable dogs dying in the Irish pound system.

“Every dog that comes into the pound, Dogs Trust will pay for each of those to be inoculated. That is worth €100 per dog. They will also pay for the dog to be micro-chipped. They have also equipped a truck to bring dogs from the pound here to a base in Dublin before bringing them to the UK to be re-homed. About 300 dogs will be sent to Britain per year and they are offering us that service free of charge,” explained Mr Coote.

“This is the biggest thing to happen in the pound since I have been here. This will save the lives of hundreds of dogs each year. We are very lucky to get this sponsorship from Dogs Trust because of how far away we are from Dublin and England. Initially when we began contact with them, they weren’t going to give it to us because we are so far away but when they found out about our numbers, they changed their minds.”

Last year Clare Dog Pound took in 1,160 dogs. Of those, according to Mr Coote, 615 were re-homed or reclaimed and 547 were put down.

“We are not just among the highest in Ireland, we are one of the highest in Europe. It is between ourselves and Wexford in terms of the areas with the highest figures annually. (Wexford took in 1,312 dogs last year, 854 of these were rehomed and 457 were put down). Dublin could average around 500 dogs seized or surrendered per year and we are getting anywhere from 1,000 up. I am under awful pressure here,” he said.

Despite the startling figures, the number of dogs being taken in by the pound has decreased. When Mr Coote started in the pound 23 years ago, about 1,800 dogs were taken in year after year.

“It is hard to put a figure on the number of dogs this programme will save. The fact is there will still be cases where you have to put a dog to sleep. If the dog is dangerous, for example, and we judge them to be unfit to rehome, or sometimes you will have families bringing in a dog who is too old and needs to be put down. I can’t see us getting to a stage where you don’t have to put any dog to sleep.”

In 2011 over 5,500 dogs were destroyed in pounds all over Ireland. Dogs Trust works to promote and enhance the homing prospects for stray and abandoned dogs from local authority dog pounds.

According to the organisation, one of the principle barriers to the rehoming of pound dogs is the public perception that these dogs are unhealthy or in some way ‘second-rate’.

“On Wednesday we took in five golden retriever pups, they were all inoculated and micro-chipped as part of this new scheme, one was rehomed by lunchtime, one is being collected in the evening. That is great from our point of view because it can be hard for the public to understand but if you take in pups into the dog pound, unless they are vaccinated, you have a 99% chance that they will pick up a disease that will make them sick or may even kill them. So there is a small window there. Now that dogs are being vaccinated, this will be less of a problem,” said Mr Coote.

Mr Coote paid tribute to executive director of Dogs Trust Ireland, Mark Beazley, as well Aidan Corcoran from the ISPCA and James Barry in Clare County Council, all of whom he said had been very supportive of the work of the pound. He also praised Mandy Ellis and Deirdre Ryan for their work re-homing dogs.

“We urge anyone considering adding a dog to their family to visit their local authority pound and give a home and second chance to an abandoned dog,” said Mr Beazley.