Dog warden initiative prompts ten-fold jump in rehoming
From this week's Galway City Tribune - A new Facebook initiative by a Galway City Council has seen a ten-fold increase in the number of stray dogs being rehomed from the pound.
The ‘Galway City Pound Dogs’ Facebook page was set up by Dog Warden Sarah Lynch in September to advertise stray dogs at Galway City Dog Shelter in Ballybane and has proved a major success.
When the page was started, there were 17 dogs living in the shelter, all of which were long-term residents. An additional 36 pooches have come through the doors of the shelter over the course of the last three months with only seven currently living in the shelter waiting to find their ‘forever home’.
And according to Sarah, their success is in no small way down to the popularity of the Facebook page.
“It has increased rehoming for the pound tenfold,” she said. “Everything is social media these days; we have rehomed about 60 dogs since the origin of the Facebook page in September and 160 dogs in the whole of 2019, it puts it into perspective.”
The page has proven to be a real hit for the newly-renovated shelter among Facebook users in the city, having amassed over 2,200 likes since its launch, with some posts reaching an audience of up to 70,000.
The page has also been beneficial to dog wardens, allowing them to improve links with animal rescue and welfare groups in helping in the rehoming of dogs with specific training or behavioural needs.
Sarah stressed the importance of dog adoption and cited irresponsible decisions around dog ownership as the key reason for dogs ending up in shelters.
“There are still hundreds of dogs going through pounds across Ireland due to irresponsible dog ownership, people aren’t being responsible when it comes to choosing a dog, a bit of common sense goes a long way." This is a preview only. To read the rest of this article, see this week's Galway City Tribune. Buy a digital edition of this week's paper here, or download the app for Android or iPhone. This week's City Tribune is in shops on Saturday, December 28th.