a few figures:
87% of strays in Ireland are destroyed.
14% in England
Under Irish law a stray dog has 5 days to be reclaimed or re-homed, a dog surrendered by it's owners 24hrs, if neither happens the dog then faces euthanasia.
Now have a look at the 2 pictures at the bottom of this page.
http://www.paws.ie/
(it`s OK. It`s before and after.
Now - do you think need stops at a border?

My Shamus was taken out of an Irish Pound on the day he was due to be killed by an Irish Rescue. He was transported by Allbreeds to the UK and I adopted him. None of that cost any of you any money. All these rescuers are volunteers.

Dogs Trust already cherry-pick `rehomeable` dogs. As do the RSPCA. They are free to make their choices - as do other Rescues who are more prepared to take those dogs that have less of a chance.

There is no way I think it is wrong. I have huge respect for Many Tears rescue and for other smaller rescues who help in a small way with dogs from Ireland and elsewhere.

rune

An individual choice , is yours to make, and I have no problem with that.

But the title is "should RESUCES give priority to UK dogs"

In which my answer is Yes!

Yes I still stand by my opinion, we are not helping the countries deal with their own problems and have a huge number of dogs in rescues. If we got the figures down to the hundreds then perhaps we could help other countries but we have to look at our own first.

Depends on the remit of the rescue .
I have no problem if a private rescue chooses to help dogs from Ireland, Portugal or Spain.
People who contribute to these rescues know where their money is going ..

Its very sad , and no I DONT think need stops at the border, but sadly we have to may dogs needing homes as it is, bringing more in, only escalates the problem here, and frees the problem there for more strays.

There is never an easy answer, because when you see individual dogs, its heartwarming to see the results, but it still does not change my mind, on the whole, we need to "fix" our own problem before we try to "fix" others

It is such a difficult one. The UK has a huge problem with unwanted dogs and so my gut reaction is that the rescues here should try and do what they can for UK dogs first and foremost. However, how can you say no to dogs from abroad who are also in desperate need? The problem is such a massive one.

I think this is one of the 'head -v- heart arguments.

From the heart - If presented with a dog that was in desperate need of my help in another country, I doubt that I would turn it down on the basis that I would go and find a dog in this country to help instead.

Individuals have different reasons for the rescues they take on or the charities/programmes they support. Sometimes the heart tells you to do something which the head may not entirely agree with.

From the head, yes, I think people's finances and energy could generally be more efficientcy spent helping the animals in this country rather than another. But if a charity is set up to specifically help overseas animals, that's fine too as those that are donating have chosen where the money is to be spent.

As for the supporting PF argument - I'm really not sure. I guess it depends what you think the PFs would do with the dogs if they didn't hand them to rescues. Personally I think it would make no difference to their actions, BUT perhaps it would produce more of a public outcry that their 'used' dogs were being pts rather than 'going to a loving home'.

But my point was that 2 of these dogs had to then be rehomed in this country....Is it just about the money then?

As I said before, I think we have a big enough problem here without bringing in more dogs for rehoming from other country's. Instead of complaining about how many dogs are in rescue here, lets concentrate on them and let other country's do the same for their dogs.