St Francis Dogs Home is a not-for-profit organisation that seeks to provide temporary shelter and care for abandoned, homeless and unwanted dogs.
We work to provide the best possible care and rehabilitation before finding them suitable and loving homes for life. We have a non-euthanasia policy except for dangerous or terminally ill dogs. We also seek to instill responsible dog ownership among the community through the example of good animal welfare practice and education.
St Francis Dogs’ Home was founded by a group of animal enthusiasts in 1955. At that time there were very few rescue and rehoming facilities, and the original founders wanted to stop unwanted pet dogs and strays being put to sleep when they could be happily rehomed.
With this in mind St Francis was founded on its existing site, and became a Charitable Trust in 1961. In 1999 the staff and trustees decided the efforts of St Francis were best directed towards dogs, and since then the centre has been rehoming around 300 dogs every year.
Our dogs come from all over Cornwall, including strays taken from local dog wardens and pets which can no longer be cared for. The original buildings consisted of basic kennel blocks and wooden field shelters. Over the past twenty years these basic facilities have been much improved, and today St Francis offers 30 kennel spaces in modern buildings, many have under floor heating and all have runs.
Amongst the ongoing development of our centre we have a log cabin style training hall, which offers the chance for indoor training when the Cornish weather is inclement! This is also an excellent facility for our more reactive dogs, who can play somewhere quiet and without distractions to commence their rehabilitation.
St Francis use this training hall to offer pet training and obedience classes, please see our training page for further information.
Further expansions also include, our reception/office for better customer service and six brand new kennels which we were lucky enough to build due to a grant provided by ‘support adoption for pets’.
Please contact us if you are thinking about adopting a second chance dog – we’d love to help you.