50 dogs rehomed by Recorder column

50 dogs rehomed by Recorder column

8 June 2016

Bingo!  Over 50 homeless hounds featured in the Recorder have now found new homes. 

The dogs had all ended up in the local Council dog pound and the Recorder have been happy to play a key role in helping them find new owners.  

Dogs are brought into the pound — on the Tobercorran Road between Downpatrick and Clough — either because they have been found straying or their owners no longer want them. 

“Sometimes a grown dog is just too much for people to cope with,” said Helen Marks who runs the Council pound at Corran Kennels.  

“People take a dog on without properly thinking through how big it will grow, or that it will need exercising every day.”

Each animal is kept for an initial six days while Corran staff assess its health, temperament and whether it is suitable to be re-homed.    

Corran have 46 kennels and have the contract for the newly extended Newry, Mourne and Down Council as well as the new Ards and North Down Borough Council.  

The kennels find new homes for about 80% of the dogs they  receive. Some of the rest are re-claimed, the remainder are put down.  Those destroyed are mostly aggressive and dangerous dogs who have worried sheep or bitten people. A few are seriously ill or are so elderly no-one wants them.

“We try to give every dog a second chance.  We try not to have them put down,” said Helen.  

Corran Kennels has been praised by local vet, Maurice King, who has also hit out at people who fail to sterilise their dog.

Mr King, who looks after the dogs in the Council dog pound, said there was “no excuse nowadays” for pets not to be neutered or spayed.

“A dog can breed a lot of puppies in a lifetime. But the Dogs Trust will subsidise the cost of sterilisation so there’s no excuse for unwanted litters,” said Mr King who is the principal partner in the Downe Veterinary Clinic on Church Street, Downpatrick.

He said the number of unwanted dogs had fallen in recent years but there was “still work to be done.”

And he reserved his strongest criticism for those who dump their unwanted animals — rather than take them to the Council pound on the Tobercorran Road outside Downpatrick.  

“It’s disgraceful to abandon a dog when there are facilities like Corran Kennels who will take in any dog,” he said.

And he added that getting a dog from Corran could be beneficial for both the dog and owner.  

“Going to Corran will tend to be cheaper than going to a breeder.  Plus you know that you are giving the dog a future,”  he said.  

And the vet was impressed that the kennels often keep stray and unwanted dogs far longer than the six days which is all the Councils pay for.

“If a dog is suitable for re-homing, Corran will keep it at their own expense much longer than six days.  They’re very kind and inevitably the dog does find a new home,” he said.  

If you are interested in any of this week’s mutts, give the kennels a call on 07909 923760.