Teesside dog rescue centre at max capacity due to strays and unwanted dogs
Maxi's Mates in Guisborough say it's a nightmare situation
Last updated 1st May 2025
We are hearing how some people in Teesside are purposely abandoning their dogs which is putting rescue centres at max capacity.
Maxi's Mates in Guisborough say they are finding it difficult to rehome certain breeds like Malinois.
The charity gives strays and abandoned dogs a safe place until they find the right home.
Jane Galliford is from there and said: "I nearly crumbled myself. There's just dogs coming in and none going out. We had a puppy that was adopted and was ill so I've had to close off a couple of kennels in case the puppy had left a virus here, but it's looking like it hasn't.
"It's an absolute nightmare at the moment. I had five strays brought in one day and they still keep arriving so our fear is that one day we have no kennels whatsoever. Our fear is we're going to be gridlocked.
"We can't actually help genuine strays because we are a stray kennels, if you lose your dog then the dog comes to us, we scan, wait for you to come forward and your dog's protected. What's going to happen when we have no space? Because people now are pretending their own dogs are strays.
"I think the last 10 strays we've had in haven't been strays and we found out afterwards it's the actual owner who's pretended, because they want them off their hands and that's the way that they know how to do it at the moment because we can't take them in any other way.
"What they're doing is risking the safety of other dogs, the genuine strays out there, so it's really a nightmare situation. We're building some more kennels, we're thinking another six but that's not going to be for around two or three months and I think at the moment we have 52 spaces but as many as kennels as you make up, they're full.
"We're always running at capacity and the dogs that we have in, they're dogs that are difficult to rehome, they don't like other dogs so these are the dogs with issues that haven't been socialised or trained properly. Obviously when they come to kennels they also develop a few more issues and it makes it harder for people to see through that because all dogs change."