Gold award for civic dog warden service

EFFORTS to save strays, educate owners and encourage mircrochipping have all helped the borough’s dog warden service get a gold standard award.

It is the sixth year in a row that the service, led by Anne MacDonald, has achieved the top grade in the RSPCA’s Community Animal Welfare Footprint scheme.

The initiative celebrates good practice by recognising those organisations which go above and beyond statutory service requirements to achieve higher animal welfare standards.

Established in 2008, the annual Footprint awards are supported by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) along with the Local Government Association, the Chartered Trading Standards Institute and the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health.

Councillor Kevin Morrell, Hinckley and Bosworth Borough Council’s executive member for environmental services, said: “Receiving this award is a major achievement for the dog warden service and to receive it for six years running is continued testament to the service provided to the dogs and residents of the borough and should be congratulated.”

Dog lover and former hosiery worker Anne became the council’s first full-time dog warden in 1989 after answering an ad in The Hinckley Times.

Over the last 28 years she has picked up thousands of strays and given hundreds of talks as well as investigating complaints around all things hound related.

With the advent of microchipping as a legal requirement for dogs in 2016 her work has taken on an increasing ‘ educational’ emphasis.

These days when a wandering dog is found the chip makes it easier to reunite it with its owner. Those which remain unclaimed are taken to Leicester Animal Aid’s rescue centre at Huncote where they are rehabilitated and cared for until they can be rehomed.