Tipperary needs a second dog pound to encourage more rescues
There have been calls for Tipperary County Council to set up a dog pound in the south of the county to encourage more people to rehome dogs that are seized by the local authority.
Fianna Fáil councillor Siobhán Ambrose made the request during a briefing by the council’s environment section at the January meeting of the Clonmel Borough District.
Speaking at the meeting, Cllr Ambrose said that a dog pound in the south of the county would encourage more people to rehome dogs as they wouldn’t have to travel to Nenagh.
"If I’m in south Tipperary and I want to rescue a dog, I’m not really going to drive to Nenagh. For the size of south Tipperary, we used to have a pound here, but have we nowhere now?” she asked.
In response, a representative from the council’s environment section said that currently, all dogs seized by Tipperary County Council’s dog wardens were being taken to the pound in Nenagh, and that arrangement was working well.
"All the dogs are going to Nenagh, and at the moment, we’re very happy with that position, and it’s working quite well,” he said.
This was a “regretful” position, Cllr Ambrose said, and added that one pound for a county the size of Tipperary just wasn’t enough.
"I just find that regretful, because before we had Kilsheelan, and I know there were issues there and it had to be closed, but I know there was a private provider who was contracted by the council, and that obviously didn’t work out, but I would ask that we might look at that again,” the Fianna Fáil councillor said.
"It’s 243 dogs that were surrendered last year, that’s a lot of dogs, and when we only have one dog pound, which is Nenagh, if it was somewhere in south Tipperary, people from the area would be quicker to go there than to Nenagh, it’s a bit away from people here.
"Are there any plans to look at this in the future?” Cllr Ambrose asked.
In response, a representative from the council said that providing a second dog pound would be a budget issue.
"The provision of a second dog pound whether physically or by contract is something that would be kept under review, but we would have to consider the considerable budgetary implications of that,” he told councillors.
Cllr Ambrose also said that dogs seized by the council and that were available to be rehomed needed to be advertised, and asked that the environment section could look into this.
"When we’re trying to encourage people to rescue dogs as opposed to buying new dogs, but I think some kind of advertising campaign needs to be looked at.
"You don’t need to say ‘this is Johnny the poodle’ or whatever, but just to advertise that for anyone looking to rescue a dog to contact the council and that we have x amount of dogs that would love a new home, because outside of us in the council chamber, I’d say a lot of people wouldn’t know where to go,” she added.
Council representatives said that they would look into organising an advertising campaign to promote the county’s dog pound and encourage more people to consider rehoming dogs.