Man’s best friend has a dog’s life at Christmas

MAN’S best friend really does have a dog’s life around this time of year. Some dogs won’t even get to see Christmas, put down because their owners don’t want them messing up the place.

Dog pounds around the country always receive an influx of older dogs around now, and experts say this Christmas will be no different.

Their owners, who simply don't want them under their feet any more, can't even face telling the truth about why they are abandoning them.

Some won't even bother bringing their dogs to the pound. Instead they arrive in the night, leaving their faithful friends tied to the gate.

Around this time of year too pedigree dogs are at an increased risk of being stolen and sold on. Such dogs need to have microchips inserted to have any chance of being returned.

A pedigree dog recently checked out by a Dublin vet had such a microchip inserted under its skin. It turned out the dog had been reported missing by its English owner two years ago.

It will be February before the usual influx of unwanted Christmas puppies arrive in dog pounds around the country.

It usually takes that amount of time before the novelty of having a pet wears off. Last year 24,000 dogs were destroyed, a decrease on the 1999 figure when 29,000 were put down.

Every effort is made by the dog pounds to keep dogs for as long as possible in an effort to re-home them. Puppies are usually easier to re-home than adult dogs.

Animal welfare groups also make a huge effort to re-home stray dogs and work closely with the pound managers.

Next year the National Stray Dogs' Forum will introduce a centralised reclaim and re-home system for lost and stray dogs in an effort to speed up the process.

Statistics show that there are 350,000 licensed dogs around the country but with licence take-up at only 50%, the total number of dogs is closer to 750,000.

Forum chairperson Edmund O'Sullivan, said the statistics showed a positive shift towards responsible dog ownership.

He pointed out that more than 2,000 cats and dogs were sterilised in October when vets and animal welfare groups offered the procedure at a discounted fee.

Pet Wedderburn, a vet based in Bray, Co Wicklow, said it was a pity there were still many people in Ireland who regarded dogs as material objects.

"It really is a medieval attitude that animals have no feelings or personalities when, in fact, they do," he said.

Mr Wedderburn, who is also a member of the forum, said it was important more people were educated about responsible dog ownership.

Ideally, he said, the forum would like mandatory electronic tagging, freely available at an affordable price.

Robert Whyte is an assistant keeper at Saggart Pound that covers the south Dublin area. Like most pounds and animal welfare groups their policy is not to re-home puppies two weeks before Christmas.

While the influx of older dogs has already started this year it is not all bad news for the older canine generation last year was one of the best for re-homing these dogs.

Mr Whyte was pleasantly surprised recently when a couple who visited the pound looking for a puppy went away with a 13-year-old abandoned poodle.

He said it was a pity people taking dogs to the pound do not come clean about why they are getting rid of the animal.

"We get people coming in, saying the dog is a stray, but the animal always gives the game away by wagging its tail," he said, adding that the task of re-homing dogs was made all the more difficult when the pound knows nothing about its background.