A family from Co Tyrone saved a puppy’s life when they found it clinging to a tree on the banks of a canal last week – and have now given it a forever home.
Louise and Michael McCullough were out for their daily walk with their kids along Coalisland Canal the day after Boxing Day, when they heard cries coming from the water. When they got closer, they realised it was a tiny puppy, a suspected beagle, freezing and exhausted, clinging on for its life.
Mid Ulster Rehoming Centre for Dogs issued an appeal on their social media to help find the owner, however, nobody has came forward to claim the pup. However, the story has a happy ending – as the McCullough family returned to the rehoming centre today to bring the dog home.
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Manager of the Mid Ulster Rehoming Centre for Dogs, Colleen Cunningham, told Belfast Live: “The family were out for a walk the day after Boxing Day along Coalisland Canal and they heard this crying. They didn’t know what it was, if it was a bird or a child.
“They said there were a number of families there who had gone up trees, so they minded their own business and walked on up. They turned to come back down again, and everyone had gone apart from a girl with a baby in a pram.
“She asked if they could hear the noise, so the dad decided he would have a good look to see what it was. There was a bit of a hill and he went up and looked through trees and the sound got louder.
“He got in through the trees and saw this wee thing clinging onto the riverbank, basically in the cold water just freezing cold, and he fished him out.”
The little puppy, a suspected beagle, was found clinging to Coalisland Canal the day after Boxing Day
(Image: Mid Ulster Rehoming Centre for Dogs)
Colleen said the puppy would have been too small to wander off to where it was found, and she believes the dog was dumped in the area.
She said: “It is a very young pup, I would say it was around six to eight weeks old. It was lucky to survive.
“They said the dog must have wandered off and fallen into the canal, but there’s no way a puppy would have wandered that far and fallen into the river, so I would say somebody dumped him in. Or else somebody put him on the bank and he fell in as he’s so tiny.”
The McCullough family had been debating getting a dog before Christmas, Colleen said, and are delighted to have been able to give the dog, who is not yet named, a new home.
“The youngest boy, when the daddy came out of the bushes with the dog, he thought the father had hidden the dog for him for Christmas,” she added.
“The wee boy is happy as larry now that he gets to bring him home. They were up today and the pup is away home wrapped up in blankets.”
When the puppy was brought into the rehoming centre by the family, Colleen was worried it was the “start of the Christmas dump outs.” However, compared to previous years, she said they haven’t had many cases of puppies being dumped after Christmas this year.
Colleen said: “We’ve had a quiet Christmas – that was the only puppy brought in. I wonder if these puppy farmers have realised they’re not getting hundreds and hundreds of pounds for puppies now, and they’re cutting down the breeding.
“I really hope so, as last year it was terrible here. We had puppies dumped everywhere, last year we would have maybe one or two litters dumped a day around this time of year. It has definitely been a lot quieter this year. We’ve had ten dogs handed in in the past day, unwanted dogs, but they’re all adult dogs.”
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