A Very Lovely Letter

Recently our Executive Director, Mark Beazley, received a very lovely letter from a schoolgirl called Amie from Co. Tipperary.  Amie's school had been visited by South East Education Officer Deirdre and it was clear from her letter that over 2 years later, Amie was still very much impacted by what she learned about dogs during the workshop.  Below is a copy of Amie's letter, along with the response given by Deirdre:



Dear Amie,

First of all Mark would like to thank you very much for your lovely letter, he said it made his day!  Mark has asked me to write to you on behalf of all the staff and dogs at Dogs Trust, as I am the Education Officer who visited your school two years ago with my Education Dogs, Sadhbh and Cónán.  I am so pleased that you enjoyed our visit and that you are still thinking about us two years later!  I have some good news:  I will be returning to your school this December to do some brand new educational workshops.  Myself and the dogs are really looking forward to meeting you all again!

I am glad to hear you and your sister have such a love for dogs – especially King Charles Spaniels and Pugs!  You were wondering what dogs would be suitable for younger children.  At Dogs Trust we

believe in ‘deed, not breed’ – that basically means we think any breed of dog can make a great family pet if they have an owner who does the good ‘deed’ of bringing them up with lots of care, attention and respect.  My advice to you would be to always try your best to be a responsible dog owner and to help your family make sure your dog is healthy and happy.  Remember, dogs need two meals and two walks a day, plenty of water, a comfy bed, some fun toys and most importantly, an owner who loves them.

At present we have over 200 dogs and puppies at our centre, all looking for their fur-ever homes!  Since Dogs Trust opened  in 2009 we have seen thousands of dogs come through our doors.  In fact, we rehome around 1000 dogs every year!  One dog who really sticks in my mind is a Greyhound called Brave.  He was tied up outside Dogs Trust with a broken leg, held together with tape.  Luckily our fantastic vet team managed to save his injured leg and Brave even went on to work as an Education Dog in East Munster!  It’s stories like this that make working at Dogs Trust so fulfilling. We think every dog deserves a second chance, which is why we never destroy a healthy dog.

I hope I have answered all your questions, and I’ll see you very soon!

Best wishes,

Deirdre

 

We would like to thanks Amie very much for writing to us, as knowing the positive effect an Education Workshop can have on our future dog owners is what makes the job the Education Officers and their dogs do so very worthwhile!  If you would like to book a workshop with one of our team, contact education@dogstrust.ie or find details of your local Education and Community Officer on learnwithdogstrust.ie.

Happy dogs at Halloween! Ollie & Odie's Top Tips!

Can you believe that it's almost Halloween?! We bet that you're all looking forward to some dressing up and trick or treating this year. We here in the Education and Community Team love this time of year (so much so that we've decided to celebrate with a Howl-o-ween event! More on that later!), but we know that our dogs might not feel the same. Can you imagine how strange it must be for them, all these new visitors to the door, not to mention all the scary costumes!

 

 
 

So, we asked new boys Odie & Ollie to put together some doggy friendly tips to help us make sure our dogs aren't scaredy cats at Halloween!

 

Staying in & going out

 

At this Halloweens thing there’s lots of new peoples walking around, well, they smell like peoples, but sometimes they don’t look like peoples!!! I don’t like to go out when they’re around as it’s a little bit scarey. There’s lots of loud noises (something called fireworks? Sound like explosions to me!) and strange smells too, so Dawn’s going to bring me out for a walk early she says- then I can have lots of time in the nights to chew on my toys! Yay! I have to stay on my lead on our walks just in case I gets a fright and run off, I don’t want Dawn getting lost! I’m also going to make sure that she comes out to the garden with me on my nightly patrol and bathroom break! I feel safer if she’s there with all the strange goings on! Dawn’s also checked my ‘chip to make sure our address is on it especially cos we moved house recently!



This is how I plan to spend
Halloween!

 

My big brother Jake has told me all about Halloween. He says that the small people knock on the door a lot, and that Fiona and Ian have to give them some chocolate and sweets to get them to go away again! I don’t mind people knocking on the door, but I think if there’s as many as Jake says there’ll be, then I would feel better if I stay in the kitchen. That’s where my nice cosy bed is, and it’s far away from the front door. I have lots of toys stashed in here too so I can play with those, and Jake says the grown ups will leave the radio on for us so that we can listen to that and not pay attention to the visitors! Result!

 

Sweet Stuff

Speaking of chocolates, did you know that this yummy sweet stuffs is actually really bad for us dogs? We could get very ill if we eat any, even though we might forget that and try to eats it all!!! Dawn has some chocolates and sweets in the cupboard ready for the small peoples to call, but I can’t get to them to eat them (they smells sooooooo good though!). I have my own yummy dogs treats anyway, so it’s not so bad.

 

And and and!!!!! Don’t give us sweets either!!! Jake says they can make us ill too. I might enjoy eating one but I know I wouldn’t enjoy being sick afterward, so keep them away from us doggies, even if we look like we really want one! Don’t forget that us dogs have super smelling powers and even if you hide them under your bed, we can still sniff them out! So put them up high or somewhere we definitely can’t get to them!
 

Dressing Up?

 

 

Us dogs aren’t people you know? So don’t make us wear a dog costume if we don’t want to! Especially if it covers our eyes, nose or ears- if we can’t use these parts of us we get very scared! If you're dressing up, please remember that even though you might smell the same as always- you look different! Do you know how weird that is to us?!

 

Also, make sure your decorations aren’t tempting us doggies! We do love to pick up exciting things on the floor and give them a good chew to see if they’re tasty, so make sure any decorations are out of our reach! And don’t leave us alone in a room full of decorations- you may come back to a mess, or worse, we could hurt ourselves.

 

 

 

So there you have it, our top doggy tips for Halloween! The humans have also put together some tips below, but we think you'll agree ours are the best!

 

 

Happy Howl-o-ween!

 

World Animal Day

 

Sunday the 4th October is World Animal Day and people  all over the globe will be celebrating and paying tribute to their own animals, and also commemorating and promoting a respectful relationship with all animals that we share the Earth with.

 

In honour of World Animal Day, The Education and Community Team at Dogs Trust thought we'd share with you what we are thankful to our pets for:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our very own Deirdre also penned this lovely poem to commemorate all pets on this fantastic day.

 

 

My friend may have four paws, not feet,

A snout or muzzle, wings to beat.

He may be black with silky fur,

A swishing tail and rumbling purr.

He may be giddy and such fun,

A grinning face and waggy bum.

He may be small with a long tail,

With shiny eyes and fur that’s pale.

He may not talk but he can hear.

(That’s why he’s got such giant ears.)

He may not know when I’m not there

I’m thinking of him; I still care.

He may not know he has my heart,

My pet, my friend, we’ll never part.

Deirdre Uí Dhubhda ©

 

We hope you agree that Deirdre's poem sums up perfectly the joy of having a pet, why not read it to yours on Sunday, and show him/her how much you appreciate them :)

 

 

 

For those of you celebrating World Animal Day in the South West, why not come along to PAWS for Wellbeing's pet blessing in Castletownbere on Sunday? It will be a lovely afternoon shared with lots of other animal lovers, including our ECO for the South West, Dawn.  Details below.