"My mum rang again later and I had other people call as well. I had in my head that if he has his name tag on and no one has notified me, someone must want to keep him because he's a Staffy."
After another flurry of calls, Miss Dempsey said a council staff member told her Bo had been found, but realised they had not mentioned the dog's name or age. She called back and discovered it was not her dog after all, but a Maltese.
Miss Dempsey has started an online petition asking for the council to change its policies relating to bull breed dogs. More than 2600 signatures have been collected.
Council team leader of animals and enforcement Brent Lincoln said: "In a nutshell, her [Miss Dempsey's] dog was impounded because it was out running loose.
"There were mistakes made by council staff in regards to staff notifying her that her dog was impounded.
"We've implemented new processes to make sure that doesn't happen again and we will be retraining our staff members as well."
Mr Lincoln said when a dog was taken to the pound, the staff would first try to call the owner and, if that did not work, the next step was to send them a letter via fast post so they would receive it the next day.
If a dog was unregistered, it would be rehomed after seven days from the date the letter was sent, 14 days for registered dogs.
American pit bull terrier type, Brazilian fila, Japanese tosa, dogo Argentino and perro de presa Canario breeds would be euthanised after these periods, as would any dog who was deemed not suitable to be rehomed after undergoing a temperament test.
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