Elderly woman gives up 30 dogs

Thirty dogs have been removed from a house in County Tyrone, after their elderly owner finally admitted she could not cope.

Twenty-nine Chihuahuas and a Rottweiler had been roaming freely at the woman's home near Fivemiletown, when a shelter in Omagh was contacted about the situation.

The woman, who is in her 80s, had gathered the animals over the years. While she kept them well-fed and sheltered, they never left the house or met other people. They also never received any veterinary care.

"Quite a lot had overgrown nails because they've never been outside," said Lynda Hill, founder of Grovehill Animal Shelter which rescued the dogs.

"Many of them have dreadful teeth and none of them are neutered. Some of their coats are a hairy, rotten mess.

"Some of the dogs that had been ill, she wouldn't have realised until she would have found them dead in the house. She couldn't possibly have known they were ill when she'd more than 30 dogs living with her.

"She knew herself it was out of control, she knew it was unacceptable,"

Six of the dogs who needed urgent medical care have been handed over to the Dogs Trust in Glasgow.
'Breaking point'

Twenty-four are being cared for at the Grovehill shelter near Omagh, which is facing a vet's bill of about £4,000 to get the dogs fit and healthy again.

"This is such a small sanctuary, though we work to our absolute limit - we re-home up to 1,000 animals a year, which is quite huge for the resources we have," said Lynda.

"We normally handle 30 dogs at a time. Now we've all of a sudden doubled our numbers.

"We're always fire-fighting with money. That's why this leaves us at a point of breaking almost."

The dogs were never house-trained and were allowed to roam freely in the woman's home, forming a pack mentality. Getting them used to human contact is a big job for the shelter.

"When one has a bit of fear and reacts to something, the whole bunch does the same, so some that aren't as scared just run on the nervousness of the others," said Lynda.
Mammoth task

"Some of the more scared ones, it's going to take a lot of time to get them able to be handled. But we've seen a big change in some of them already."

Many of the dogs had never had a human hand on them.

"Even though they lived with the lady in her house, she was a woman in her 80s and she couldn't get down to most of them," said Lynda.

"They scurried round her house, ran out for some food and back in behind furniture a lot of the time. They were almost like feral dogs living in her house."

The dogs have been wormed, flea-treated and are about to have their second vaccinations, before the slow process begins of neutering them all. Then comes the mammoth task for Lynda and the volunteers at Grovehill of trying to re-home 24 dogs.

"We live with the motto, 'There's always a solution', and we work towards these wee dogs all getting homes and living the rest of their days healthy, happy and comfortable."