K9 Rehab in Burnley is dedicated to rehabilitating and rehoming rescue dogs, giving them a second chance at a happy and fulfilling life.
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00:00So we set up Canine Rehab in 2011. We were doing quite a lot of training with another
00:08business. We were doing displays up and down the country, agricultural displays and that sort of
00:13thing, and training with Lancashire Constabulary. And I ended up leaving that business and starting
00:20up on my own, just basically taking dogs from rescue really, from the German Shepherd Rescue
00:25mainly, and it sort of snowballed from there. When we realised that we could turn these dogs
00:30around, these dogs that were either a bite risk or they were dog aggressive or they were people
00:34aggressive, and it didn't take long with a bit of knowledge to get the dog turned around,
00:39rehabilitated basically, into being a family pet or a working dog depending which thing they fit
00:45really. So that's where the Canine Rehab came in, because it was a canine business and it was more
00:50about rehabilitation than about anything else. So we just started taking shepherd after shepherd.
00:56We're not breed specific. We tend to get a lot of the bigger breeds that other people won't take,
01:01a lot of the dogs that are a bite risk at the minute. I mean we've always taken large breeds,
01:06but obviously since lockdown and since the XL Bully Ban, we've ended up with lots of XLs.
01:10They're one of my favourite breeds, they're lovely. They're just quite, what can I say,
01:15they're very stubborn. So you've got to be a little bit more firm with them, but they are
01:19a lovely, lovely dog and they're very trainable. Malinois, they're a big thing at the minute.
01:23Everybody wants a Mally and they're not a couch potato. They don't want to sit on your settee.
01:28Well people get dogs like sausage dogs, you know the Dash Hounds and little dogs
01:32that are bred for a purpose, you know, to hunt for badges and other sorts of things,
01:36but they expect them, you know, again to go on a harness and walk around the block or up and down
01:40the canal. And they're dead vocal because they're used to finding things and shouting like,
01:44look I found it. And they need a job as well. Lots of dogs are in rescue and in the pound just
01:50because they need a job and people don't know how to educate them. We normally get between 60 and 70
01:54dogs a week. I would say between 15 and 20 are rescue dogs. They're not all coming through the
02:01same rescues. We get dogs that are Romanian street dogs that a lot of rescues are amazing
02:07and they send the dogs over and they've got full backup. A lot of them are not, you know,
02:11they'll bring the dogs over, they drop them with the owner and then they're basically on their own.
02:15So these dogs have hunted for themselves, you know, they've been seriously independent
02:19and then somebody wants them to fit into, you know, village life in Barrowford or something
02:23like that and that's not how these dogs are wired. So we've got to educate the person
02:28how to educate the dog. And a lot of the time you've got to separate the dog from the handler
02:33so that you can get to the root of the problem because, you know, the handler is
02:36quite a big factor in why the dog's like it is. Obviously we're not harsh, we're not mean to dogs,
02:41we're here to rehabilitate dogs because we love dogs and all these dogs deserve a chance to get
02:46another life rather than to be sat in a kennel or, you know, sat in a rescue 24-7. A lot of these
02:51dogs just need a little bit of fine-tuning and their handlers need a little bit of education
02:57so they both understand each other, you know, just open up that communication so they understand each
03:01other better to prevent dogs going into rescue and to prevent dogs being put to sleep as well
03:05a lot of the time.