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GILLIAN BIRD Head of Education and Media, DSPCA “
I did the Christmas Day shifts in the DSPCA for seven years in a row: myself and my husband used to do it. We would get up first thing on Christmas morning, arrive at around 6am, and we would feed, clean, water, medicate… anything that needed to be done for the animals. We would usually finish around 11am, but during a couple of those years, we’d cook Christmas dinner and leave it in the oven on low before heading to the shelter. “It was fun, actually – one of the years, before the M50 had been built between Tallaght and Dundrum, the bridge was missing off of Stocking Lane [in Rathfarnham], which I remember seeing as I was coming down on my moped… that was a long time ago! But no, it was great – I didn’t have kids at the time, and it was our thing that we used to do. “As of 2018, I’ve been with the DSPCA for 20 years – I basically fell into it, I had a prior career as an archaeologist. I was working on heritage projects with FÁS at the time, came up to volunteer here and ended up staying. I was working in the yard with the animals for about a year and a half, and then the board approached me about re-establishing the Education department since I had some experience in that side of things – so that’s what I did. “From what I’ve seen in the past two decades, some amazing changes have happened; not just in the number of animals we take in, but also the facilities that we have and the services we offer. We have a crew working every 25th December in the shelter, while Graham [O’Brien], our Shelter Manager, is always on call during Christmas Day, and Rachel [Dee], head of our fostering department, is heavily involved in getting as many of the animals as possible out of the shelter. She’s also on call 24 hours a day for anyone who needs information or advice over Christmas. “At any one time, there are between 100 to 170 animals in foster care. A lot of our animals will go out on the “Foster To Adopt” programme at Christmastime, which means that we have potential owners that we’ve vetted, they like the particular animal in question, and they foster the animal over the Christmas season. Maybe it’s a dog that hasn’t been neutered, nor received all of its vaccinations, so it can’t be officially rehomed yet, but can be fostered over a fixed period and then, people can adopt it when it comes back [to the shelter]. It works on a trial basis. “Another great advantage is that when a foster animal comes back in to us, we gain far more information than if it had stayed in the kennel. We get our fosters to fill in these little forms and diaries, where they can tell us the animal’s likes and dislikes, what their routine is, what sort of environment it would fit into… We know a lot more about whether it likes or dislikes the hoover, or whether it barks at passing traffic. We then have more of a complete story to tell people when they do come to adopt. Naturally, we find that animals that have been fostered will be adopted quicker than those who haven’t been. “Our boarding kennels here are also running over Christmas – the staff there will be working on the 25th. It may be a business operated by the DSPCA, but without that business, we would be severely financially stuck; all of the funds come back into the charity. It is a nice thing to spotlight, that these staff are getting up at 7am on Christmas morning to come in and care for peoples’ dogs.” dspca.ie 46