By Evan Short
Senior Reporter

THE economic downturn is causing a crisis among local animal welfare homes with abandoned dogs having to be rehoused as far away as England to cope with a recent influx from cash strapped owners.
Peter Whelan from the Meath County Dog Pound says that while the reasons given to staff vary, he has no doubt that the huge amounts being left off is down to one thing.
“The biggest excuse we would be getting is that ‘we don’t have time and the dog is being left alone’, but really, reading between the lines, it has to be to do with how they can’t afford them,” said Mr Whelan.
“A lot of people tell you want you would like to hear when only the odd one would tell you the truth.”
Mr Whelan says the beginning of the pounds problems can be traced to the middle of January.
“I’d say it was around the middle of January when it started, and it wasn’t down to the Christmas thing because they weren’t pups we were getting through the door, they were mature dogs that you can see people had for a long time.”
However, he says the owners who come into leave the dogs off aren’t the biggest problem. That, he says, comes from unscrupulous owners leaving the dogs at the Pound gate at night rather than pay the small fee that legally surrendering them brings.
“We have had people leave dogs tied to the gate and sometimes not even tied up,” he said.
“We had a Rottweiler left loose outside the gate, which is a dangerous breed, and there are children in the vicinity. It wasn’t muzzled and a dog like that should be.
“In that particular case the dog was left with a female mastiff and it looked like the pair of them were breeding dogs. I would say that they were left off by someone who was puppy farming, but because of the downturn people aren’t buying puppies and it was costing him money to feed them.
“These were dogs that had bred a number of litters of pups and they were left at the gate. The reason he didn’t bring them inside the gate is that there is a surrender fee and he didn’t even have the decency to pay that.”
Peter has appealed to anyone who is thinking of giving up a dog for any reason to be as truthful as possible when handing them over.
“The more we know about a dog the better chance we have of re-homing it. We need to be told the truth; if someone leaves a dog in because it has killed the cat we should know that so we could tell the new owners it is not good with cats. Just tell us the truth,” he urges.