Manukau City's pound takes in more stray animals than the rest of Auckland combined, writes Helen Laurent
More than 2500 dogs were put down in Manukau City last year - seven times more than those lucky enough to find new homes. Animal control is serious business and the statistics are sobering.
Annual figures for the Animal Management Shelter, run by Manukau City Council and Papakura District Council, show that 3895 dogs from Manukau and 879 from Papakura are impounded there every year. The total of 4774 is more than Auckland, Waitakere and North Shore cities combined. While 357 of these dogs were adopted out last year to members of the public and organisations like police and customs and 1729 were claimed by their owners, shelter staff were forced to end the lives of 2597 dogs. In comparison, Waitakere Animal Shelter, which also collects dogs and cats from North Shore, has impounded 500 to 600 animals since 1998. Animal management education officer Tricia Gillingwater says the public is not aware of the shelter's adoption scheme and usually associates adoption in the south with the SPCA. "We do advertise it but people don't know that we can do adoption here and we do have a lot of success stories," she says. The shelter, in Wiri, has room for 150 dogs. Dogs are held for seven days, until their owners claim them. If they do not, efforts are made to re-home them. "We do our best, but we can't keep them here forever. We do get good dogs that we have to put down but we do try to keep them here longer than normal." Ms Gillingwater says the high stray count is because people get dogs for the wrong reason. "A lot of people get a dog for a guard dog but that is not how a dog should be. They need to be part of a family, they aren't walked or played with and they aren't socialised. They don't know how to behave. "Adopting from here is a three-day process, and we try to match the people to the right kind of dog for them."
For info on adopting dogs from Manukau Animal Management Shelter, see the website: www.animalmanagement.co.nz or ph 279 5959.
