In 2025  "we are more of a sanctuary than a rescue" is a line you will see and hear attached to us

As the visible face of Dun-Roamin',  I wanted to detail why this is now the case and detail how we got here as this morphing process is something we often get asked about

Although there is a small team around me to fulfil the functions required to be a charity, my knowledge as the founder and being the only one of us 'on the ground',  allows me a high level of autonomy when it comes to the direction of the organisations under the DR banner. Over the last 20 years, decisions have been made with the right intention and with the knowledge acquired at the time. As I have learned more and my opinions have changed along with the times, the autonomy has allowed me to alter what we do in line with this new thinking

Every dog rescue, however well intentioned, carries out its activities in the knowledge that achieving a 100% success rate in it's rehoming is impossible, accepting that a certain percentage of  placements will fail and some of their dogs will lose their lives. This       practice, and thats what it is, a deliberate choice,  favours volume over  individual life and is one, made easier to live with or make, with a high turnover of dogs where there is little time to build relationships

An unforeseen consequence of "specialising in dogs with a negative behavioural history" as we do, is that their stay with you is longer. Therefore, every aspect of your relationship with them with each day that passes, is strengthened. Up until the Covid outbreak, we too were guilty, without realising it at the time, of favouring the successful majority at the expense of the unsuccessful minority. The explosion of more appeasing dogs, visually and physically, that came with Covid brought about a real noticeable watering down of the quality & quantity of suitors for our dogs which was evident in the level of work people were prepared to do when comparing BEFORE & AFTER Covid

The realisation hit me that we would now need to action somewhere around 5 times the level of resource to achieve the same success rate as before, working harder and looking further afield than ever before with the likelihood still being, perhaps even moreso, that we would be sending them out to either come back more stressed than when they left our care or even worse, to die at the hands of the new post-Covid standard of owner, ill equipped for "bad" behaviours. Seeing our dogs as happy and as well as they then were, living under our very different approach & belief system,  I decided that I neither wanted or needed that outcome for either myself or any dog under our care when they were already, in terms of their care and understanding, in the best place they could  possibly be

Whilst the lines of enquiry remain open to all,  this stance remains in place to this day. The right home is about the people who make it and not the material that the four walls are made of and if we see the right qualities in those people enquiring then the idea of placement to them remains very much an option

Ian Webb