“We’re up to 210 dogs in the pound and up to 100 cats and we’re only halfway through the year,” he said.

“We had 300 for the entire year of 2007.

“It’s just not getting through to people to de-sex and microchip their pets.”

Mr Jones said the shelter had been so overloaded that council would have to consider building more cages.

“The current dog cages can technically house nine, I’ve had 18 in there recently, and I’m also using the cat cages as overflow.

“Re-homing has been reasonably successful and Dubbo Animal Shelter help out when they can, but a high amount have been euthanased which is generally at cost to the ratepayer to pay the vet.”

Mr Jones said Narromine also had a problem with feral cats as he had trapped 14 in the CBD area in recent weeks.

“The thing about feral cats is many of them are infected with cat AIDS and can infect domestic cats if they fight them. It is very important to keep cats inside and I can’t stress enough the importance of getting animals de-sexed.”

Mr Jones said he was called out to a Narromine property on Saturday evening where he found a male de-sexed German Shepherd severely mauled by three Rottweilers, one of which was a female on heat.

“I have never seen a dog mauled that badly,” he said.

“Animals on heat cause a lot of attacks, if she was de-sexed it wouldn’t have happened.

“People have got to be really careful when their dogs are on heat, and restrain dogs when they’re not home.”

Mr Jones conveyed the dog to an after-hours veterinary surgery in Dubbo. It has since recovered, but at great cost to the owners.

“It was an expensive lesson for them,” he said.

“The microchip in the dog was also still in the breeder’s name so contact with the owners was delayed.”

To adopt any or either of the dogs at the Narromine Animal Shelter or for more information on de-sexing your pet contact council’s environmental ranger Ewen Jones on 0417 413 176.