Eden District Council’s Environmental Protection Team are celebrating a double achievement for their work with stray dogs. For the eighth year running the Community Wardens have been awarded the highest level of recognition, Gold, for their work with stray dogs and promoting responsible dog ownership in the district.
On top of this the RSPCA are celebrating their tenth anniversary of the ‘Paw Prints’ awards, and have awarded the Community Warden’s hard work with a Platinum Stray Dog Footprint.
The Community Wardens are thrilled with the result. Senior Community Warden, Becky Duckworth, is delighted that their work is recognised by the leading agency for animal welfare: ‘I am proud of the team achieving this fantastic result. We all work very hard to ensure a stray dog is properly looked after and every effort is made to ensure it is reunited with its owner. Going forward we will be promoting dogs wearing collars with ID tags, as we find this is often still overlooked but it is such a simple way to help a dog to be reunited with its owner if someone finds it.
“Microchipping is also important – and now the law – but an ID tag can be read by anyone, whereas a microchip can only be read by someone with a scanner, such as us or a vet. Reporting your dog as lost to the Council quickly is also vital. It is the law that stray dogs are reported to the Council, so we may already have been called by someone who has found your dog.”
In 2017/18 the Council collected 43 stray dogs. The number of stray dogs has been steadily decreasing since 2011. All lost and stray dogs can be reported to the Community Wardens by calling 01768 817817, including at weekends and Bank Holidays.
