Wandsworth Council Win Dog Awards

Thu, 05 Feb 2009

The Wandsworth Council has won two major honours at the Kennel Club’s annual Good Citizen Dog awards. The awards are meant to recognise organisations that promote responsible dog ownership and highlight the efforts and success of the borough’s Dog Control Unit (DCU). The awards has been given to Wandsworth Council following the Wandsworth Guardian’s campaign to encourage more responsible pet ownership. Their campaign included a compulsory animal micro-chipping scheme for council tenants. The council received first place in the local authority category, and was also named this year’s overall winner, staving off competition from over 60 rivals.

The Wandsworth DCU is the largest in the country, with Mark Callis – its most senior officer – recognised as one of Britain’s dog enforcement experts. Mr Callis said, ‘We are trying to change the behaviour of people that get a dog and then do not look after it properly. Teaching residents the skills required to care for their dogs and opening their eyes to the level of work involved is key to reducing the number of dangerous dogs on the streets. Invariably it is the dogs that are neglected or abused by their owners that end up causing problems.’

Link to this page

Copy and Paste the following HTML into your page.