Fetcher Dog recently posted content on social media and part of the content was highlighting how healthy dogs in the UK can be euthanised after seven days. This was disputed by some viewers of the post so we would like to take this opportunity to clarify the current situation and the differences between dog pounds and dog rescues.
Fetcher Dog are a rescue centre and are contacted on a daily basis directly by dog owners looking to give up their dogs and local dog pounds who notify us that dogs will be PTS on certain days ie after the statutory seven days are up.
When spaces allow Fetcher Dog will always take in abandoned dogs.
Jordan writes:
Pounds are very different to rescues and there seems to be confusion on a recent post about how pounds work with many people questioning their existence in England.
When dogs are found as strays by dog wardens, they are taken to the pounds that serve the area the dog was found. The dogs have to be held for 7 days so people have a chance to claim their lost pets but after that time runs out, ownership of that dog is transferred to that pound.
Some pounds around England do not send any dogs out to rescue and put all the dogs in their care to sleep if they are not claimed after that 7 days period is complete.
The lucky dogs have groups of wonderful volunteers often known as “pound pullers” who get as much information as possible about the dogs that are running out of time and contact as many rescues as possible to find rescue spaces for them.
We work with a few really lovely people and organisations and we take as many dogs as we can into our care to stop them from being pts when they run out of time.
Pounds cannot keep dogs forever, they are not set up for that so when new strays come in and need the kennel spaces, the dogs that have served their 7 days have to leave one way or another.
The majority of the pounds we work with have euthanasia dates set on day 8. Some pounds can be slightly more flexible but this doesn’t last forever because when the kennels are needed for other strays, the dogs have to leave. If it wasn’t for the pound pullers and the rescues that agree to take these dogs, the dogs would be put to sleep.
Perfectly healthy dogs would be and are put to sleep.
There are a few pounds that sell dogs directly to people but the dogs often don’t have any health checks or behavioural assessments and the families aren’t home checked.
A lot of the comments on a recent video state that no healthy dogs are put to sleep in the U.K. and that isn’t the case. Dogs are pts every day for very treatable medical conditions, slight behavioural issues or due to lack of space in pounds and some rescue centres. Luckily, most rescue centres are no-kill but there are also some rescue centres that put healthy dogs down when they haven’t found homes in a set time. Denying this is happening is not helping any of the dogs.
Some people believe that if they dump their dog, they are guaranteed a rescue space and that just isn’t the case. We try our best and stretch very limited resources as far as they can go but rescues are struggling and more and more pressure is put on rescue centres and pound pullers to find spaces out of nowhere for an increasing number of strays.
Please do your own research and be responsible when buying or adopting dogs from anywhere. Rescues and pound pullers are not there to clean up messes when people change their mind on wanting their dogs and dump them for someone else to deal with.
Thank you to all the people that support us and the other rescues out there doing great work, we can’t do it without you!
