A man arrived into our Sanctuary, opened his boot and took out a young collie dog stating that he “no longer wanted him”. A staff member tried to explain that we had no empty kennels and a long waiting list and the man changed his story to “he isn’t mine, he strayed into my garden a couple of weeks ago”. Again our staff member tried to explain the difficult situation we were currently facing and, as per the norm, offered to scan the dog, take photos for our Lost and Found page, give him the local Dog Wardens number and also our Kennel Managers number so he could keep in touch with her re-upcoming available space.
The man became extremely rude and offensive and proceeded to let the staff member know what he thought of him and us as a rescue, taking no notice of the cowering, scared dog at his feet on a length of rope who thought the man’s shouting was directed at him!
Full credit to our member of Staff who remained calm, polite and still offered to go and get our chip scanner to check if the dog was chipped. Returning to our carpark with the scanner (literally one minute later) he found the very distressed collie tied to our fence and the car driving away.
These are the situations and stresses we are put under every day.
We now had a young, abandoned scared collie dog with no where for him to go plus a staff member who felt he had done something wrong , yet the person who had so callously “abandoned” this dog was driving home without a care in the world was delighted he had “rid himself” of “his problem”.
We named the collie Baggot and he had to spend 2 nights in an outdoor run with only a wooden hut for shelter and it broke our hearts to see him standing there. When a dog was rehomed Baggot was moved into our kennel block. He is such a sweet boy who is coming out of himself every day.
But when will the attitude change?
When will we see the laws we have on paper actually be put into practice?
Our voices matter and they need to be heard!
For the Animals