‘Out with the old’ dog owners should be ashamed says WSPCA

THE WEXFORD Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has been inundated with calls from people demanding that they take in their older dogs to make way for ‘Christmas pups’.

Rehoming officer, Brigid Cullen said that while this is something that happens most years, she has seen a particular increase in such instances this year.

‘People are ringing every other day asking us to take in older dogs. We’re between a rock and a hard place because if we say we can’t, they’re threatening to let the dogs out on the road, others are threatening to drown or shoot them. It’s deplorable.’

She said she had four calls from people on Thursday who wanted to get rid of their dogs before they put the Christmas tree up for the Toy Show on Friday. She recalled an incident three years ago when she was asked to take in a 15-year-old dog because it was knocking things off a Christmas tree.

‘The same people will go out and buy pups off unregistered breeders and then be in to us again when something is wrong with them, and they might be after getting rid of a lovely, older dog before that.’

She urged people to think carefully before getting a puppy for Christmas, pointing out that they could live to be 18 or 19. She also urged people to consider rescue dogs as opposed to rogue breeders. She slammed the ‘out with the old’ attitude of some pet owners, saying they should be ashamed of themselves.

But she paid tribute to the people who had come forward to offer foster homes for rescue dogs, expressing her gratitude to them.