24th January

Stop Press  Our friend Ali Taylor is on The Alan Titchmarsch show today 3pm - 4pm with a Battersea Staffie discussing dog bites and dangerous dogs.
http://www.itv.com/alantitchmarsh/

Alan Titchmarsh on ITV1

www.itv.com

               
I am purposely writing this before the programme goes out tonight and everyone has their say on that.
I want to let you know where we are as a rescue at the moment and about the two phone calls I had today.
Tara is keeping me company snoring over by the radiator.

Tara

For some time now, weeks that became months, we have had far more dogs than we would like and can comfortably deal with.
The problem is that re-homing has slowed down so much that dogs are staying far longer than they used to, we have also had some returns, which we never refuse as we keep our commitment to each dog we home.

Boycie

We are bombarded by requests to take in new dogs everyday, most of which we refuse but as someone said to me recently, you cannot claim to be a dog rescue if you never take in any dogs, and so there are exceptions and the numbers increase.
Jade's home appears to have worked out so we have had one dog less for 12 days but Boycie is coming back on Sunday. Sally and Simon with Saffy have fostered Boycie for several months, they had hoped Saffy might accept him but this was not the case, they have hung on to him far longer than we had hoped but no home has been found and he is coming back. We also have Sandy in kennels and a puppy in the wings.

Sandy

So we are overdrawn by four dogs! We cannot return to a reasonable quality of life until we home four dogs (and don't take any more in!)
Having so many and one in kennels is a huge drain on our resources and when we pay the January kennel fees we will have all but run out of funds.

That is the situation, now let me tell you about the calls:-

The first was from a lady up north. She had an eight year old female Akita and had recently lost a lab x Lurcher. She heard of a Staffie cross which had been found wandering the streets so she offered him a home. It had taken a long time but she had won his trust. However, the other day she came home to a bloodbath where he and the Akita were fighting and now he had to be caged so she wanted him to go to a new home where he would be the only dog.
We, of course, were unable to help as she was too far away, the dog was a cross and we have no spaces or homes especially ones for only dogs.
She had tried lots of other places, hence trying us despite the distance.
Someone had suggested having the dog 'put down,' and she said she would rather be put down herself but she couldn't keep him caged like he was at the moment......

The next call was on my doorstep.
It was a girl who had rescued a dog' from a mate,'else he was going to the RSPCA and she felt sorry for him.
She got him back to her flat and he didn't like her cat. So she was having to crate him so he was no better off than in his other home plus he was making the most awful racket ( I heard him) and the previous owner was not answering her calls
So she wanted him gone....

This is how it is everyday. Sometimes you feel sorry for the people, mostly we worry about the dog, but you cannot help them all, especially when you are struggling to cope with the ones you have.
So lets see how this programme fits into the equation, let everyone jump up and down defending their breed and signing their petitions, as for me, well, I have dogs that need to go out....