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Despite their widespread publicity, it seems that the National Canine Defence League (NCDL, now Dogs Trust) deals with only about 10% of the UK’s strays. They took in 12,000 dogs in the year 2000. Of these, 61% were re-homed and 17% returned to their owners. The remainder were accounted for in other ways; some dying and some retained. 83% of the dogs handled by the NCDL were not returned to their owners. This high proportion leads to the speculation that many dog owners don’t want their animals back.
Local authorities bear by far the greater burden of stray dogs. In a report of 2001-2 jointly with the NCDL, the National Dog Wardens Association (NDWA), estimated the total number of strays dealt with by local authorities as 117,564, with 11% ‘put to sleep’. On the other hand, some dogs find their way to the rescue homes directly and their number must be added to the total of ‘strays or unwanted’. The report also states that 46% of the dogs are returned to their owners. It follows that a lower proportion (50%) of stray dogs dealt with by Local authorities are not returned to their owners.
From these figures, of more than 117,000 stray dogs picked up annually in the UK, over half of them, i.e. 66,000 or more, are simply, dumped dogs. (Incidentally, it is asserted that 20,000 hounds would be slaughtered [by their owners] in the event of a ban on hunting with dogs – far less than the number of dogs dumped each year).
Local authorities deal with by far the most stray dogs, and consistent with their terms of reference, return a greater proportion of those dogs to owners. Consideration of the activities of the two groups of organisations, begs a definition of a stray dog. On the one hand, all of the thousands of dogs picked up from wandering alone on the streets could be defined as strays. But on the other hand, some of those have simply become parted from their owners by accident and are soon claimed. Others will never be claimed, principally because they have been deliberately abandoned. Initially both categories create the same problems, but after an interval of time the latter demand irrecoverable resources and pose questions of disposal. Any approach to the problem of strays must recognise the distinction, both to facilitate the claiming process and to provide for humane disposal. The mechanics of dealing with the dog represent only one side of the problem. Much has been made of the trauma of enforced parting from a dog, but little is known about pre-meditated dumping, because the parties are seldom identified. In seeking solutions it is not sufficient to aspire to re-home every dog that is picked up. For local authorities, such a policy is precluded by the scale of the phenomenon. It assumes year after year, there will be a perpetual supply of sufficient numbers of people willing to take in dogs. Meanwhile, exhortations to owners not to dump their dogs fall on deaf ears.
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