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A pound in the news today.

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Comments

  • #52
    sillysmiles
    Registered Users Posts: 1,170 ✭✭✭sillysmiles


    The unfortunate thing is that animals that end up in pounds often don't have anyone to rally for them.


  • #53
    DBB
    Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators Posts: 9,775 Mod ✭✭✭✭DBB


    sillysmiles wrote: »
    The unfortunate thing is that animals that end up in pounds often don't have anyone to rally for them.

    It sure seems that way in many of our pounds. Such a pity, because there are a couple of pounds run extremely well, great animal welfare standards, thorough rehoming policies, open to the public etc, so it can be done.
    The case I'm talking about above where a county council was effectively shamed into doing something about their pound facilities, it was actually a rescue group that did all the complaining, and got results. So in that case, the dogs absolutely had someone campaigning on their behalf, but alas, it was just one pound, and it took a lot of complaining to get them to pull the finger out :(


  • #54
    Pac2015
    Closed Accounts Posts: 186 ✭✭Pac2015


    DBB wrote: »
    Ashton has been privately run for far longer than 2 years. As long as I've been involved in rescue (15+ years) and beyond, it's been privately run... (Edited to add, I'd be reasonably sure that it's been the same private company at the helm for all that time, they always seem to get their tender renewed... They own the premises at Ashton, and the pound has been at Ashton as long as I can remember (decades), so my guess is that the same guy has been in charge here for a long, long time... A lot longer than 2 years in any case!)
    Summerhill used to run Meath pound, and more recently South Dublin pound... there is plenty of room in Summerhill, more than there is in Ashton. It's all down to who offers the cheapest tender, and probably a dollop of behind-the-scenes politics too. In this case, it had nothing to do with how many dogs each could accommodate, because the tender was awarded to a place with less room than the sitting tender-holder.
    Ashton has always had issues with disease control and rehoming (with the exception of a period of about 10 years when the now-Meath-pound rescue were strongly involved at Ashton and were rehoming hundreds of dogs every year for them... As soon as that rescue pulled out, the wheels began to fall off the cart. Similarly, Summerhill was not exactly award-winning in terms of disease control and animal welfare, though at least they worked a little better with rescues than Ashton in latter years. Every dog I pulled out of Summerhill had an infection picked up in the pound. Some did not survive.

    Similarly, before the rescue won the tender for Meath (and it's not actually the rescue that runs it, they had to set up a different company under which to apply for the tender... A paper exercise), that pound was run by two other private companies in the time that I remember: Summerhill, and a place in Slane.
    The running of these privately-run pounds has to be offered to tender every x number of years under regulations governing public spending. It is very often the case that once the county council has their legal obligation to provide a dog pound sorted out with a privateer, they no longer give a damn as to how it's run/rehoming rates etc. Their butts are covered.

    Dublin had two pounds the Meath one and the Ashton one and what I should have said was that 2 years ago Ashton was given the contract for the whole of Dublin it could be slightly longer.


  • #55
    DBB
    Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators Posts: 9,775 Mod ✭✭✭✭DBB


    Pac2015 wrote: »
    Dublin had two pounds the Meath one and the Ashton one and what I should have said was that 2 years ago Ashton was given the contract for the whole of Dublin it could be slightly longer.

    Yes, Ashton have run the north Dublin pound since forever in my living memory, and they won the tender for South Dublin a couple of years back. Summerhill used to have that tender... Ridiculous that the South Dublin pound was located in Meath!
    Summerhill also won the Meath contract for a while, so at one stage were running both South Dublin and Meath pounds, as well as their own commercial kennels.
    Summerhill, it has to be said, has infinitely better facilities than Ashton in terms of space and kennels, but like I say, it seems the cheapest bid wins no matter whether the place is a dive, and Ashton now runs all of Dublin. And yes, it is a bloody kip.


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