Don't bring strays to pounds. Bring them to shelters only.

Graces7

mjffey wrote: »

What do shelders/spca's do with all the non rehomable animals when they have a no kill policy?

Sometimes you have to make the crual dicission to put an animal down. Better dead then for the rest of his live in a small kennel with only a walk a few times a day. That's not having a goog live.
Think about yourself; locked up in your bathroom and only allowed to go for a walk a few times a day. How would you feel?

What also has nothing to do with animal welfare is shipping them to shelters in the UK. For every animal from ireland that is shipped to the UK or to another shelter in europe, in that country an animal will be put down because of lack of space and for those who think that this does not happen....

Leitim Animal welfare shipps animals with truck loads to the uk. They even have their own truck and driver on a full time base! and they go every week to the UK.
Same for SSPCA, MSPCA and a few other shelters here in the West.
The SSPCA sent two weeks ago a car load of cats (sometimes up to 3 in a cat carrier with no littertray, food etc) and all infected with ringworm, to the UK.

I have this information from somebody inside who is to afraid to speak out loud, so unfortunately I can't do anything as long as I haven't seen it myself.


They call this RE-homing....... My ***** (excuse my French) this is only to make their numbers look good.

May I ask why you think it is such a bad thing to send strays/rescues t the UK?

The dogs are carefully rehomed in the UK: where the chances are they will be better cared for than they have been here, given the enormous problems of dogs here in Ireland.

You are making allegations that are not true.

We know Leitrim Animal Welfare well; they are hardworking and caring people who have a very low pts rate. Dave is the Dog Warden and is good at that work. They run their shelter well; making the money they need by pet grooming and cat boarding.

So why attack that way of dealing with an appalling problem?

Discodog

Irish Pounds, percentage of dogs put down during 2008. As you can see the ISPCA run dog Pounds & their PTS figures are pretty dreadful.

3% Leitrim
7% South Dublin
10% Meath
16% Louth
19% Dublin (Ashton)
25% Cork City
29% Galway County
29% Sligo
33% Wicklow
36% Monaghan
36% Waterford City
43% Wexford
52% Waterford County
52% Laois ISPCA
60% Galway City
60% Roscommon
61% Carlow ISPCA
66% Offaly ISPCA
66% Westmeath
67% Clare ISPCA
68% Kilkenny ISPCA
70% Limerick County
71% South Tipperary
71% Mayo
74% Donegal
76% Longford
76% North Tipperary
79% Cavan
80% Kerry
80% Cork County
83% Kildare ISPCA
91% Limerick City

Aston Pound is run by tender as a profit making business. I believe that they received over €1 million in 2008. Whilst I would accept that some Pounds attempt to do a good job many are simply killing centres & have no interest in re-homing.

All the above figures are publicly available.

I must object to the OP's comment regarding re-homing & the health of Pound Dogs. The poor Pound dogs are on death row with a very tight timescale so I would personally rescue from the Pound. Having said that I respect that many rescues take dogs from the Pound. In fact the impressive improvement in the PTS figures for Dublin Pounds is in no small way due to the amazing work of Dogs in Distress.

merengueca

Those PTS rates are truly heart breaking!

Both of the dogs in our family came from Offaly ISPCA and the pound there was really clean the last time I visited. In fact the guy running the place had his own dog in there with the others.

There really is something so very wrong with this world that within minutes drive from any dog pound you would probably be able to find a puppy farm.... poor bitches being forced to breed to point of exhaustion to produce cute little puppies for profit while perfectly healthy loving dogs are being pts.


Anyone considering a new addition to their family, of the four pawed variety, please, please look at the ISPCA website first, I know two gents who are glad we did...

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The Sweeper

Resurrected thread from years ago... Post number 58 is from July 2008. (Says a lot that it's still a pertinent subject two years later, but you might not get far arguing some of the earlier points in the thread.)

Graces7

Discodog wrote: »

Irish Pounds, percentage of dogs put down during 2008. As you can see the ISPCA run dog Pounds & their PTS figures are pretty dreadful.

3% Leitrim
7% South Dublin
10% Meath
16% Louth
19% Dublin (Ashton)
25% Cork City
29% Galway County
29% Sligo
33% Wicklow
36% Monaghan
36% Waterford City
43% Wexford
52% Waterford County
52% Laois ISPCA
60% Galway City
60% Roscommon
61% Carlow ISPCA
66% Offaly ISPCA
66% Westmeath
67% Clare ISPCA
68% Kilkenny ISPCA
70% Limerick County
71% South Tipperary
71% Mayo
74% Donegal
76% Longford
76% North Tipperary
79% Cavan
80% Kerry
80% Cork County
83% Kildare ISPCA
91% Limerick City

Aston Pound is run by tender as a profit making business. I believe that they received over €1 million in 2008. Whilst I would accept that some Pounds attempt to do a good job many are simply killing centres & have no interest in re-homing.

All the above figures are publicly available.

I must object to the OP's comment regarding re-homing & the health of Pound Dogs. The poor Pound dogs are on death row with a very tight timescale so I would personally rescue from the Pound. Having said that I respect that many rescues take dogs from the Pound. In fact the impressive improvement in the PTS figures for Dublin Pounds is in no small way due to the amazing work of Dogs in Distress.

Thanks for posting this; hoped someone would;)

Leitrim Animal Rescue acts as the pound as Dave is the Dog Warden and took that work on. We almost took a dog from them way back so we know how careful they are.

magnumlady

We got a dog from the local dog pound/shelter run by the local council.

They try not to put any of them down. Our guy is a pet, he was wormed and vaccinated (and micro chipped) when we got him. I had to take him for his kennel cough vaccine.

He had not health problems (apart from a slight limp when he runs).

I would highly recommend anyone to get a dog from there.

I also tried local animal rescue centres at the same time, it took them two weeks to get back to me.

Michael G

Graces7 wrote: »

May I ask why you think it is such a bad thing to send strays/rescues t the UK?

Because the UK people take only the cute ones. The ugly, disturbed and dangerous ones are left here to be put down.

Michael G

Discodog wrote: »

The impressive improvement in the PTS figures for Dublin Pounds is in no small way due to the amazing work of Dogs in Distress.

Don't forget the Dublin SPCA. They re-home hundreds of dogs and never put a dog down unless it is too sick or dangerous to be re-homed. Even the dangerous ones are kept unless the vet decides that confinement (with exercise with expert walkers) is too hard for them.

Discodog

Michael G wrote: »

Because the UK people take only the cute ones. The ugly, disturbed and dangerous ones are left here to be put down.

That is an appalling & untrue remark. The UK have no obligation to take any of our dogs. It is our problem & we should solve it. The UK rescues & charities should be praised as should all the other countries that take Irish dogs. The Dogs Trust have just spent €10 million on their Dublin centre that was raised by UK dog owners. It says a lot for UK dog lovers that they are prepared to spend so much to help dogs here.

Yes you can quickly fill a rescue with dogs that are either impossible or will take a lot of time to rehome. They take up space & prevent you from saving another dog, so more dogs die.

I am sure that the DSPCA do good work but I was specifically referring to dogs being rescued from Dublin Pounds. There must be concern that several SPCA's chose not to affiliate with the ISPCA. We need one major organisation, like the RSPCA & not lots of satellites.

Michael G

Discodog wrote: »

That is an appalling & untrue remark. The UK have no obligation to take any of our dogs. It is our problem & we should solve it. The UK rescues & charities should be praised as should all the other countries that take Irish dogs. The Dogs Trust have just spent €10 million on their Dublin centre that was raised by UK dog owners. It says a lot for UK dog lovers that they are prepared to spend so much to help dogs here.

If you look at their accounts for 2009 here http://www.dogstrust.org.uk/about/accounts/accounts2009.pdf, you will see that their income last year was £60 million, including almost £1 million from "adoption fees". Obviously they do great work for dogs. But Irish animal welfare groups like the DSPCA, which care for all animals, are struggling to raise enough money to keep going. At the moment the big problem is the epidemic of starving abandoned horses. There are far too many to rehome, and when they have to be put down the cost of disposing of each carcase is crippling. I think it is fair to ask why a wealthy British charity, working only with dogs, should choose to compete with the Irish groups in a small country for a dwindling pool of donations from the public.

Discodog wrote: »

I am sure that the DSPCA do good work but I was specifically referring to dogs being rescued from Dublin Pounds. There must be concern that several SPCA's chose not to affiliate with the ISPCA. We need one major organisation, like the RSPCA & not lots of satellites.

The DSPCA is Ireland's biggest and oldest (170 years now) animal welfare charity. It serves the greater Dublin area and often gives practical help to SPCA and other groups outside Dublin. It works regularly with the ISPCA, which is a federation of most of the SPCAs outside greater Dublin.

Discodog

Your explanation regarding the accounts of the Dog's Trust cannot have any bearing because they do not show the Dublin figures separately. Firstly you criticise charities for rehoming in the UK & now you accuse them of taking away potential donations from Irish charities.

The following is from a email from the CEO of the DT that I posted on Boards in September 09. I feel it appropriate to repost it here. I will ask Clarissa for an update regarding the latest accounts. This email is reproduced with the full permission of the sender:

Dear Peter

Very many thanks for your e mail. So glad you are hearing many good things about the Dublin centre but disappointing that there are critics out there already!

Some of what they say may have a foundation of truth but overall it is fiction.

Dogs Trust role is to save dogs from destruction and to reduce the number of unwanted dogs. The latter is done through a massive neutering campaign, in Ireland alone we have neutered nearly 30,000 dogs in 3 years, we also have an Education officer investing huge amounts of time educating the dog owners of tomorrow.

The former is clearly the sticking point, first and foremost we believe that the greater number of dogs that we rehome the more we can save. If we fill our kennels with sick dogs we will leave many hundreds of healthy dogs to die. BUT having said this, we are welfare people with vocational staff who would not dream of deserting dogs in need and I give a few examples below of dogs that we have in our care/or recently rehomed that perhaps help to bear out this fact.

Sash (was called Jessie), a black 1 year old female Lab X. Came in from Laois SPCA with a fractured femoral head and metacarpal. So far we have spent in excess of €750 on Jess to nurse her back to health. On top of that we've found her a lovely home where she is now getting hydrotherapy sessions to aid her recovery!

Lisa, a tan coloured two year old female Pomeranian X. Lisa came to us from Wexford Dog Pound with a badly dislocated hip. She has had 2 lots of x-rays so far with an operation in between to put the femoral head back into place. She may still require further surgery if the hip fails to stay where it should. She is a lovely dog and we will do whatever it takes to ensure she regains use of her leg.

Mable and Sherlock and two beautiful (in our eyes anyway!) Staffordshire Bull Terriers. They are 11 and 8 years old respectively and came to us from Dunboyne Dog Pound. Both Mable and Sherlock are 'getting on a bit' and will require on going vet treatment for arthritis and a number of other ailments for the rest of their lives. They are very sweet natured dogs and we are hoping they will find a loving new home soon!



We have been open for business about 6 weeks and I have no doubt the “problem” dogs will grow but we must try to ensure that the greater number for the greater good prevails. Ireland will largely follow the UK pattern where 30 % of the dogs in our care have been with us for over 6 months. These are sick dogs/old dogs or just rather plain dogs. We also have around 1,000 dogs on a foster scheme where we are paying all or part veterinary fees. So hopefully you will agree that our critics are wrong!!!!

Warmest best wishes

Clarissa

Clarissa Baldwin OBE

traci doyle

i was at the vet today with a pic of my dog trying to track him down and there was a womwn in there with a so called stray cat that looked like it was well fed and loved saying it was a stray and checking for a chip she started saying how lovely it was seeing was it spayed and everything because she thought foreign nationals had dumped her etc when i knew and the vetinary assistant knew it was a family pet she had taken a liken too and was being selfish and wanted to keep it some ppl are just so bad they dont bring these strays anywhere because thet rather keep a well brought up animal for themselves instead of going through training a kitten or puppy i was hinting at her to let it go home and stop feeding it,the cheek of her checking was it spayed first it makes me so angry

Discodog

You cannot blame anyone for assuming that a dog or cat is a stray when Ireland is full of strays. So much so that 16,000 strays will die this year just in our Pounds.

Just because an animal is spayed does not mean that it has not been abandoned. I admire anyone who is prepared to give any stray a home.

HealthNWealth

I am about to get a kitten next month and I am just wondering should I get it from the pound? Do they even have kittens at the pound? Do they pts as well?

I normally go to a shelter or someone advertising free kittens that need good homes but if they are killing kittens in shelters then I want to get one from there.

Discodog

Official Pounds are only for dogs as they are part of the Dog Control Laws & are not rescues.

However there are plenty of rescues that have Cats & Kittens looking for good homes.

mosey

Had occasion to visit the Meath Dog Pound recently and was shocked at the facility. Dogs (in individual pens) housed in the same building as pigs, no bedding... I know funding is always a problem but I was genuinely shocked that this is an 'official' operation.