IT was about midnight when Brenda Thackeray finally got to bed. She had been ready to go home when a council warden called to say they were about to drop off a stray dog, which had been picked up on the streets.
The new arrival was duly found a home for the night, fed and checked over. Then, just as Brenda was about to head home for a second time, a phone call came in to say two puppies had been found in a garden in St Helen Auckland.
She fired up her ambulance and went to collect them, a lurcher and a terrier-cross, and brought them back to the kennels at Coxhoe on the outskirts of Durham City.
It took until about 9.30pm to get them back and bedded down for the night. No sooner was it done than Brenda received another call – a lurcher puppy found wandering the streets of Newton Aycliffe. She arranged to meet the caller in Tesco car park and collected the eight-week-old stray.
“She was terrified when I picked her up,” says Brenda, “she was shaking and crying all the time. I brought her back and got her settled in with a nice warm bed. I’m a fusspot and I wanted to make sure everything was right – that’s just the way I am.
“But that’s the idea of volunteering, all you can do is think about the poor little dog out there – that’s what it’s all about at the end of the day. People have some preconceived ideas about it, but you have to be really, really dedicated to the dogs”.
CLEARLY, Brenda is dedicated to her dogs.
Back at the kennels the following day, the lurcher found in Newton Aycliffe jumps up as she enters the compound, wagging her tail and licking Brenda’s face.
There are 43 dogs in the Stray Aid kennels this morning, and Brenda is on first name terms with them all – “all my boys and girls,” she says.
To be honest, the 64-year-old makes an unlikely rescue hero. Born in Brampton, in Cumbria, her farming family moved to Northumberland, when she was just four.
She met her late husband, John, when they were both working in Newcastle and eventually they moved to High Pittington, near Durham City.
After a stint at the Land Registry, Brenda began working as a receptionist at a GP practice, with surgeries in Belmont and Sherburn. It was there, in 2006, that a friend and colleague told her about the new charity which had opened its doors at Coxhoe.
Stray Aid was set up by vet Susan Bielby and her husband, John, horrified at the thousands of stray dogs being put down within seven days of being found.
They rented a site just a stone’s throw from the A1(M) and opened ten kennels operating on the simple principle that no dog would ever be put down.
Stray dogs from across County Durham are brought to the centre and for ten days, the charity tries to reunite them with their owner. After that, the newcomers move into the main kennels where staff and volunteers try to find them a new home.
They seem to have a remarkable success rate. The longest any dog has been on the books is six months.
They reckon, on average, they save about 1,300 dogs every year from being put to sleep.
Brenda is one of 30 or so volunteers who give up their time for the love of the dogs. When she first turned up to offer a hand six years ago, it was to take some of the dogs out for the occasional weekend walk.
NOW, she gives up anything up to 40 hours a week, making sure the kennels remain clean and tidy, feeding and walking the dogs, helping out at the micro-chipping roadshows, which go out at weekends and, increasingly, driving the ambulance which criss-crosses County Durham picking up the strays late into the evening.
Her dedication recently saw her honoured at the County Durham Environment Awards, where Brenda walked away with an award in the Volunteer of the Year category.
She has two dogs of her own: an English springer spaniel, called Quill, and a Brittany spaniel, called Lottie, who was herself a rescue dog brought into the Coxhoe kennels.
“I have always been an animal person,” jokes Brenda.
“My parents were farming people so I have always been around animals – I am made of good peasant stock, I like to get my hands mucky. When you see the benefits for the dogs, when you see them rehomed, it makes it all worthwhile.
“When you get to know the dogs and they get to know you, that’s the reward”.
She has been bitten on more than one occasion and has spent hour after hour driving around the estates of County Durham late at night, but nothing deters her from looking after her dogs.
“I do get a tiny bit possessive about them,” she says. “There was one dog we had – Lou – a Staffy. We had that dog six months and for some reason no-one was interested.
“In the end, she was quite resigned to be in the kennels and then this day a lady came along and asked to see Lou. Our hearts were in our mouths.
When she finally took her, we were ecstatic.
“You may have had a terrible week, but then something like that happens and it makes it all worthwhile”.
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