大象传媒

Diane Kelly is a soft-hearted veterinary nurse from County Durham who shares her home with unwanted dogs, she explains: "I just can't do it, I just can't put a healthy dog to sleep."

She works for a veterinary practice in Stanley, but can't bear to see any dog put down.

Instead, she takes them to her home on the outskirts of Durham and tries to find them new owners.

Saving the day

It all started when Diane used to train German shepherd dogs in obedience, but when one didn't quite make the grade along with its canine comrades, she decided to take him home and begin the search for a new owner.

Running around is thirsty work

Her path into nursing was traumatic.

While taking one of her cats for an injection, a German shepherd dog attacked one of the nurses at the veterinary practice by biting her arm. Diane jumped to the rescue by putting her fingers down the throat of the dog and kept it under control.

Diane remembers: "They got the nurse out of the room, pouring with blood she was and the dog was snarling. I had tight hold of it and the other nurse turned around and said 'we're going to have to put it to sleep' and I was like, oh my god, I'm going to have to hold a vein to put the dog to sleep and it was a German shepherd so I was absolutely mortified.

"The next day I got a phone call saying the girl that the dog attacked would be off for six weeks, do you want to come and give us a hand? And I said I would love to [...] Three days later a job came up at the main surgery and that was how I started vet nursing."

In the dog house

Through being a vet, Diane started to realise that she didn't agree with people's reasons for wanting their dog put down so she took it upon herself to take care of the unwanted dogs, train them up and re-home them.

There's a good boy!

"Christmas was a nightmare," says Diane. "People just don't want them and they came in saying 'I need this put to sleep because my grandmother is coming and she's 90-odd years old and might fall over it, can you put her to sleep?' You've got no idea what some of the excuses they come out with."

Over the 30 years of caring for unwanted dogs, the 50-year-old says: "In all the time I've been doing it, it must be 800, 900 coming up to 1,000. The largest amount I've had at one time was 56 at Christmas last year."

"It's also word of mouth as well [...] I got a phone call the other day from a police asking me if I could take in a spaniel from the police and re-house him. I think I'm notorious now for being the mad woman with all of the dogs."

She kennels most of them in her back-yard. However, some of them, including her own eight dogs and eight cats - are house-trained but don't necessarily rule the house. Oh, and the horse is well looked after too.

As any pet owner knows, looking after animals can be quite expensive. There is a lot of dog food to be eaten while looking after so many dogs, find out how much by watching the video:

As part of finding the right people for the dogs, Diane has a strict regime: "The first question we ask is, how long are you out of the house? If it's more than four hours, they don't get a dog.

"We will also ask if there're children, have you got a back garden or yard where they can do their business [...] once we've got the questions out of the way and we're happy, we can then go for a home visit and take it from there."

If you think you may be interested in adopting one of Diane's dogs, visit her website: