The Stray Dogs Sanctuary
At the moment we are unable to take any more dogs into the sanctuary because all our kennels are completetely full, which is depleting our funds rapidly. Some of the dogs have been in the kennels for a very long time. We have a non-destroy policy and care for the dogs for as long as they need us to, but we need to re-home some of them before we have room for any more in the rescue.
We have 27 dogs in need of homes.
PLEASE READ THIS Lucy, a beautiful lurcher, went missing on 5 th June. Her 13 year old owner Chloe suffered dreadfully before being adopted, and since her adoptive parents got Lucy for her, she and Lucy have become inseparable. Poor Chloe is distraught. Please do everything you can to help to find Lucy ad re-unite her with Chloe. More details are on the lost dogs page of this website.
Brindle grey rough coated lurcher Zulu went missing from the banks of the river Piddle, near Poole Harbour on Monday 21st June 2010. He is a a much loved and well cared for dog and there is a REWARD for information leading to his safe return. He may have been moved out of home area with travellers who were in the Wareham / Poole area until Saturday,3rd July. If you have any information about Zulu or where these travellers may now be camped please call Zulu's owner on 01929 555224 or 07768 596665. Photo on the lost dogs page.
The Stray Dogs Sanctuary was set up in Dorset in September 1999 to provide kennelling for local stray dogs, and to re-home them if they were not claimed.
The dogs that are rescued by the dog wardens are kept in the care of the council for 7 days. If they have not been claimed at the end of that period, we take them into our care and look after them until they find homes.
We also take dogs from homes where they can no longer stay, e.g. because of a marriage break up or the death of the dog’s owner.
We take dogs of every breed, and our area covers Purbeck, East Dorset, Poole, Bournemouth, Christchurch and the New Forest, although we will always consider homes further afield, and have re-homed dogs over a very wide area. We have rescued and re-homed many hundreds of dogs since the rescue was started.
Many of the dogs that come into the kennels have been abused or abandoned and are in poor condition and often need medical treatment before they can go to their new homes.
The charity is run solely by volunteers and we receive no public money, and rely on fund raising events and donations to pay for the care of the dogs.
We always have dogs in our care that need homes. If you want to know more, or may be able to offer a home, please ring Judy on 01202 696685.
If you have seen a dog on this website please telephone for a chat about the dog. We will ask you for information about yourself and your family - sometimes this may seem intrusive but we are trying to re-home our dogs in the best home we can, from their needs but also from yours so that your new dog has the best chance of fitting in.
The next stage in the adoption process is a Home Visit. We only do visits by appointment, after we have spoken to you about a particular dog. We do not visit in advance of having a possible pet for you as we like to match dogs and owners on a one-to-one basis.
If you do not live close enough for us to do a visit we can sometimes arrange for another rescue to see you on our behalf.
In certain circumstances if this is not possible we do re-home out of area, subject to a vets reference.