Plans for a state of a new state-of-the-art animal rescue centre in Co Down have been thrown into chaos after the Assisi sanctuary was forced to stop taking in dogs due to a noise complaint.
The team at the Conlig centre was due to go live with a pre-planning application for the current site imminently, with plans including an education centre, fostering unit and specialist care for reactive dogs.
But now staff and volunteers are busy trying to find foster homes for 12 dogs all waiting for forever homes, and they must work out how to keep six severely reactive dogs on site without them barking.
Staff and volunteers they have thanked DogsLive and Belfast Live readers for coming to the rescue following a public plea for help on Tuesday night.
Nigel Mason, the outgoing CEO of Assisi Animal Sanctuary said: “We’ve been overwhelmed by offers of help to foster and rehome our dogs and we feel confident they'll be sorted very soon.
"But we have six dogs here who'll never be able to live in a domestic setting because they’re simply too damaged by their experiences and are reactive.
"They have to stay, we have no choice. We don’t want to end up in court with the council and we accept they have a responsibility to investigate complaints, but we operate a no-kill policy and we just cannot put a healthy dog to sleep to stop him barking.”
A complaint was made by a long-term neighbour of Assisi to Ards and North Down Borough Council in November about the early morning noise levels and for the last two months the council has been monitoring the situation.
But now they have sent Assisi a letter to say they have to take action to ensure the noise stops.
Nigel said: “We have no way to do that quickly other than to move our dogs to another site, so we were pretty desperate for foster families to help us.
“We had literally been about to hit the button on our pre-planning application for a fantastic new rescue facility at Conlig.
“We had planned to move to a 'foster first' situation because we know more than most that kennels can be stressful for dogs, they're simply not ideal and can be traumatic creating more problems for the dog than the ones they may arrive with.
“We’ve already bought the large field behind us and with the help of the Woodland Trust we planted 10,000 trees there to act as a noise barrier to the site behind us which is currently for sale and may be built on.
“And we'd planned to create an onsite public experience through our little forest and an education centre.
"So the dogs we got in would have been fostered through a network of foster carers and then adopted. And the dogs who were not suitable to be rehomed could be worked with for longer periods until they were able to safely leave.
“Any others who were not able to be helped and remained reactive, would be able to live out their lives in a beautiful facility with sleeping areas that were to be sound proofed as much as possible.
“But now we’ve been plunged into another situation where the trustees may be forced to find another site and try to get planning permission to build there instead.
“I think people will understand that we have a deeply emotional connection to the site we are on. Thousands of dogs and other animals have been rescued and rehabilitated and then rehomed from here over the last 50 years.
"Thousands of people remember their dog coming from Whitespots when it was run by the USPCA or Assisi, and we’ve had hundreds, maybe thousands of volunteers through the doors over the years.
“Now we've been told we must take action to mitigate the sound of barking. Well, there's no easy way to do that apart from removing the dog. So we face this difficult situation where we’re left with no other choice, the dogs have to be taken off site.
“We have told the council that we have six long term dogs who cannot be rehomed and they must stay here.
“We fully understand the council must act and investigate when they receive a complaint about noise. We plan to work with them and do all we can.
"So we have a choice now, we can look at this situation as a problem, or we can look at it as an opportunity. I believe it may be both, a problem that has possibly created an opportunity. Maybe it's time to move to a bigger and more remote site with no neighbours."
Assisi are now in negotiations with a former working kennel to be able to continue taking dogs in and work to have them rehomed from there until a permanent solution is found for the future of the current site.
Nigel said: “Our mission as always, is to do right by the animals, do right by the public and educate along the way to try to ensure fewer people give their dogs up for rescue.
“The trustees meet on Wednesday evening to discuss the matter and see how things can be moved forward.
“In the meantime we all want to thank the DogsLive and Belfast Live readers and our own supporters who responded so quickly and in such vast numbers to our cry for help last night.
"We have been inundated with offers of help and quite overwhelmed by the response and outpouring of support.
"But it means we feel able to look forward today knowing we will find the very best foster care and adoptive homes for these beautiful dogs who deserve the best.
"We've been inundated with calls, messages and emails and are working our way through them so please be patient with us. If you have expressed an interest in fostering, a member of our team will be in touch however, due to the sheer volume of enquiries, it is going to take a bit of time to reply to all interested parties.
"For anyone who is not in a position to become a fosterer for a dog, but would like to help us, we are seeking to rent alternative kennels to facilitate restarting intake in the future.
"This will allow us to continue our mission of rescuing, caring for and rehoming. This will come at an additional cost so any donations to support this would be greatly appreciated."
The complaint made to the council about Assisi came from a neighbour who has lived in the area for many years who said they were being disturbed by dogs barking as early as 5am.
Ards and North Down Council confirmed: “Under the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act (Northern Ireland) 2011, the Council has a duty to investigate noise complaints. The Council cannot comment in relation to any ongoing investigation.”
In the last 27 years Assisi has rehomed more than 50,000 animals. And for 25 years before that, then called Whitespots and run by the USPCA, it was the best known dog charity in Northern Ireland, attracting people from all over the country who came to rehome a dog.
Alex Easton, independent MLA, said: "This is truly a shocking state of affairs Assisi formerly Whitespots has been there for more than 50 years taking in vulnerable dogs and saving them.
"I am astonished that Council have taken action about a noise complaint especially as the Council have given funding to Assisi over the years.
"Anyone living around Assisi would know that they had dogs and that dogs bark when they moved there.
"This is just another example of the Council being heavy handed and making ill-judged and foolish decisions forcing Assisi to have to make this distressing decision not to take dogs for the present.
"I will contact Assisi and the Council and see if I can offer any help to try and resolve this ludicrous state of affairs, this is just so unfair on ASSISI and the dogs concerned."
If you would like to donate to Assisi's kennel rental fund or any other work they do, you can click here and follow the link.
