Last updated 19:42, Thursday, 08 May 2008

PEOPLE who find stray dogs at weekends or out of business hours could have to transport them to Cockermouth in their own cars.

New Government legislation means that responsibility for collecting stray dogs transferred to local councils from the police on April 1.

But, with only three wardens, Allerdale council does not have the resources to operate out of hours, the council’s executive committee was told on Wednesday.

Officers said the priority of the wardens was to respond to the main complaint from rate payers - dog fouling.

He said the cost of providing additional services to catch stray dogs at weekends and at nights would be too much.

Millcroft Veterinary Clinic in Cockermouth has won the tender to accept stray dogs out of hours.

Coun Michael Davidson said that it was ridiculous to expect members of the public to pick up a dog in their own car and then drive to Cockermouth to hand it over to the vets.

Portfolio holder Sam Standage said the number of stray dogs collected in a year was small and he could not see this being an issue.

The report from head of environment, Ian Payne, also recommended the removal of the tag a dog scheme, introduced in 1993.

The scheme, to promote responsible dog ownership, involved a register of owners and pets.

Collars and tags were provided to owners who registered, and enabled stray dogs to be returned

Mr Payne said the scheme was intended to be self financing from the sale of tags but the number of registrations remained low and the administrative burden of the scheme and the time involved in taking animals back to their owners free of charge detracted from the wardens’ key functions.

Council leader Joe Milburn supported the tag scheme and suggested it led to responsible ownership.

After a lengthy discussion the executive moved to accept responsibility for stray dogs under the terms of the new legislation but said how this would be put into practice needed more discussion.