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My name is Helen (username Zipper).

Marie and myself do the rescue work from Ashton pound, we post under the name of ‘Dogs in Distress’ on the Pets Ireland. Ashton is the biggest pound in the country, it is situated on the northside of Dublin city.

The average intake of dogs to Ashton is 40 dogs per week. These would be made up of strays picked up by the dog wardens, dogs surrendered by their owners because they don’t want them anymore and then a small amount of dogs seized by wardens following complaints from the public.
Average reclaimed dogs is 3 per week.
Homed from the pound averages at 13 per week (mostly small cute and cuddle types)
Anything after that comes out to rescue apart from a small percentage that are put to sleep because they are not rehomeable due to temperament or have a destruction order from the courts.

So far this year there have been 1160 strays and 902 surrenders

Only for the help we get from the UK, we would not be able to save all these dogs. All dogs have to be neutered/spayed, wormed, vaccinated and have to be out of the pound for at least two weeks before we send them over to the UK.

We have a small amount of fosterers (6 at present). Our main problem is getting kennels to keep the dogs in. Most kennels wont take dogs from a pound because they have no vaccination certificate, other kennels that do take them are full to capacity. They usually offer a reduced rate for rescue dogs.
We can be charged anything from €7 to €12 per night. ( £5 to £8)

We have a small amount of regular fosterers ( 6 at present time) We usually reserve our fosterers for the special needs dogs, those that have been ill or injured or perhaps nervous, timed dogs.


Astrid is responsible for saving hundreds of dogs. She helps rescues all over Ireland and I don’t now what we would do without her

John (Biggsd) has saved countless numbers of German shepherds and shepherd x’s. Our GSD rescue here in Ireland (Celtic Animal Lifeline) had to cease taking in dogs due to planning restraints for the time being, CALL will still take as many dogs as they can but have to board them in private kennels and this is a huge burden for them.

Celtic Animal Life Line 00353 872645245/00353 6728129 or e-mail celticanimallifeline.dogrescue@gmail.com


The recent crisis was due to fireworks season and there is always a huge influx of dogs to the pound. We are down on fosterers and it’s just become impossible to get kennel spaces at affordable rates.

We are not the only people rescuing from pounds. There are other people, some of them working alone, that are saving dogs from pounds. A lot of pounds wont allow rescues to take dogs and some of them wont even let them past the door, while others charge fees for each dog that comes out to rescue.

Astrid has posted paypal links for a few groups who take dogs from pounds, that’s for anyone would like to send something to help pound dogs in general.
If you would like to help German shepherds, John and Astrid have a “GSD in need fund” and they have been able to pay for shepherds to stay in kennels over here until John can take them.

In the past few weeks, we have had a huge amount of shepherds into the pound, the sheps in the photos below where all in the pound at the same time. thanksfully all but two of them got out.

Anything else that you would like to ask me, please feel free.