A Tour of Dogs Trust Dublin's Rehoming Centre

Have you ever wanted to come and have a nosey of our fabulous rehoming centre, but just haven’t gotten around to it? Or perhaps it’s a bit too far?

Well we’ve taken some pictures for you so you can have a virtual tour and see some of the behind the scenes action in Dogs Trust.

Just a little background info before we get going. Our centre has been in Ireland since November 2009 and we have so far rehomed 1,949 dogs (as of today, 8th February 2012). Our main objective is to rescue as many dogs as we possibly can from the pound system and to rehome them to the best possible home we can find.

This can often be a lengthy process for some of our residents, as they may not have gotten the love and attention they deserved in their previous homes. No matter how long it takes though, we will keep each dog here until we can find him or her a loving home. After all, our motto is that we NEVER destroy a healthy dog.

So let's go!



Reception!



First port of call is our reception area! When you first come into the centre, you will be greeted by a member of staff and asked to fill out a homefinding questionnaire. These questionnaires help us to assess your lifestyle and help find you the dog to match. After filling out your questionnaire, you can have a wander down our rehoming corridor and see if anyone catches your eye. If we think we have the perfect dog for you in one of our other blocks, we will bring you down to meet them. When you have picked a dog, you can come back to reception to discuss this with one of our staff and you can put a hold on your new dog.

Rehoming Corridor

Our Rehoming Corridor is where all our assessed dogs reside. We have 3 different blocks here at Dogs Trust - our Rehoming Block, our New Arrivals block for when new doggies come in and our Booked block for when doggies get booked to go home. Some of our dogs who are a bit anxious living in kennels will reside in Booked block as the Rehoming Corridor is just a bit too much for them.

Each of our glass fronted kennels has sound proof tiles, underfloor heating, sniff holes for the doggie to suss you out and an outdoor area for chilling out. Each dog has it's own bedding, which is donated to us by our supporters. We are always looking for things which can be used as bedding; such as duvets, sheets, blankets, towels. If you are doing a Spring Clean, please keep us in mind!

Saying that, we next move on to our Laundry Room!

Laundry Room

This does exactly as it says on the tin :) All the dog's bedding is washed daily to keep everything fresh and clean for them.

Chow time!

For the dogs, this is the most important part of the day!

Vet Suite

Next up on the tour is.... our state of the art vet suite! This is very important for all our residents. When they first arrive at the centre, they receive an intake exam, which basically assesses their current state of health. They are fitted with DAP collars, which release a smell which relaxes the dog (after all, it has probably been a very scary time for the dog, coming from the pound). Any health requirements they have will be met here by our wonderful vet team. All our doggie are neutered, microchipped and vaccinated before leaving the centre and that all takes place here.

Renesmee - 3 month old German Shepherd cross (female)

Here's a pic of Renesmee. We just saw her chilling out whilst taking the pics for this feature. She's a gorgeous wee thing looking for a home - just thought we'd share! ;)

Real Life Room

Most of the dogs we have in our centre have come to us from the pound system, so we don't often know their background, or what things they like or don't like. To help us get to know them, our Training and Behaviour advisors carry out a thorough assessment in our real life room. This room has a double sided mirror (very CSI!) where a member of staff can document the dog's reaction to different stimuli. These assessments help us to create a profile for the dog, which in turn helps us match them to the perfect new home.

Outer view of kennels

This is a view of the outside area that each dog has access to. Sometimes they just need a breather from all the hustle and bustle of the centre!

Puppy Palace

Welcome to Puppy Palace! As you can see from this pic, cleanliness and hygiene is super important down in Puppy Palace. This is because some of the residents in here are only teeny tiny newborns, whose immune systems are not quite developed yet. Others are just waiting to have their vaccinations before they can take on the world. For this reason, Puppy Palace needs to remain completely sterile - staff working in here wear shoe covers and those bio-hazard suits you can see hanging up.

Puppy Chow Time!

Just another cute pic we caught on our tour of the centre! Tia and Tamara are little Collie cross pups, totally adorable. Seen here having their lunch!

Very Important

We caught this piece of info hanging up in Puppy Palace and would like to share it with you all. We see so many puppies being abandoned, if you are thinking of getting a dog - make sure to do your research first :) We actually have an app for those of you with iPhone/iPads and are looking for some tips for looking after your puppies, check it out here http://www.dogstrust.org.uk/az/a/apps/

Fields, fields, fields!

Fields! We have lots of land for our doggies to get their walks. We also have different compounds built, some with concrete, some with sand, where dogs can get a break from the fields and maybe go play a game of "Fetch!" with one of our volunteers.

Puppy playground

This is our little puppy playground and yes, they do use the slide! Bit of a gloomy day when this pic was taken, hence no puppies out playing. On warmer days, this place is a sea of bouncy balls and fluffy toys!

Training Barn

And finally, this is our training barn! Lots of different things take place in here - from our adoption talks for prospective new owners to staff and doggie training. Our training barn can also be hired out for Civil Wedding Ceremonies! We have surround sound, ample parking, catering kitchen and of course, you can bring you own doggies along to help you celebrate your big day. For more info on that, you can email marketing@dogstrust.ie.
So I think that concludes our tour of the centre! We welcome all our supporters to come visit the centre, we open every day from 12pm until 4pm, apart from Tuesdays when we do a big deep clean of the centre. We even open Bank Holidays! Make sure you tell your friends about us too - the more people that know about us, the more doggies we can rehome.

Thanks for reading! xx

Our First Blog - A Summary of January!

We are so excited to be starting our Dogs Trust blog this month! It's still a work in progress so bear with us! We hope that it will give us a medium to share more stories, pictures, videos and basically all things Dogs Trust and doggie-related with all our supporters.

So we thought we'd start with a little round up of January. It has been such a busy month for us, both with dogs coming in and dogs leaving us for their forever homes. We have rehomed a whopping 72 dogs so far this year, some of whom had been in the centre for quite a while. We are so happy to have them go off to their forever homes, and to get the love and attention they really deserve. (We do get a bit soppy seeing them go off, it's hard not to get attached sometimes!)

At the beginning of the month, we put an appeal on Facebook and Twitter for a home for a special young man named Carlow. Poor Carlow was found knocked down on the side of the road and was in need of medical attention. He had some quite big surgeries for a tiny pup, but he just proved how wonderful dogs are when faced with these trials, and was up and bouncing around in no time. We brought Carlow with us to our monthly slot on TV3's IrelandAM and following this, he was rehomed to a wonderful lady named Karen and her family.



Carlow, now called Marley, with his new Mammy!


As mentioned up above, we had our monthly slot of TV3's Ireland AM. We brought 4 dogs with us, 3 of the 4 have been rehomed, with the 4th due to go to her forever home this weekend. We are so grateful to IrelandAM for giving us this slot monthly, it really helps increase awareness of our centre and the numbers of dogs out there needing to be rehomed.

A story that you may be familiar with is the one of our little friend, Gump! We started this story on our Facebook page last Monday, with a picture of this puppy and his deformed leg. Our team of vets decided it would be better for Gump to have his little stump removed. As he was getting bigger, he was trying to use it for balance and just causing himself some sores and discomfort. The first picture on Facebook wished Gump good luck with his big surgery, and we followed up on his progress for the next few days. We had so many comments, wishing Gump well and we even had a lady stop one of our staff in traffic to ask how he was getting on. It was lovely to see so many of you moved by his story. He even received a little parcel in the post, containing a fabulous snuggle blanket from one of his fans! Check out our Facebook page for the "Gump Series"! http://www.facebook.com/dogstrustireland

Gump, a 3 month old German Shepherd cross who had his front leg amputated.

Gump is now ready for adoption, so if any of you were following his updates on Facebook and are genuinely interested, please pop into the centre for a chat with our rehoming team. He is such a little superstar, he'll make a fabulous addition to any family!

Which OF COURSE is the reason we are here in the first place, to rehome all of the wonderful dogs we have living here with us. If you are thinking of adding to your family, or know someone thinking of getting a new addition, please tell them to come and see us. We get new dogs into the centre regularly and we update our website's rehoming gallery twice weekly. We are located just off exit 5 of the M50 and we open every day from 12pm until 4pm apart from Tuesdays, when we do a big clean of the centre!

If you are not in a position to adopt and would like to get involved, you can always volunteer in the centre too. We are delighted with any time you can afford to give us, so if you are interested, download our volunteer form and pop it back in the post to us :)

That's all for now folks! Keep checking back for more news xxx