Bunbury & Districts Dog Club given chance at lasting home with two-year trial

A local dog club have managed to get their paws on an opportunity to trial a new home for training and events. The Dardanup Shire Council made the move to grant the Bunbury & Districts Dog Club a two-year trial to base their operations at Glen Huon Reserve after they made a request for support to relocate from Hay Park in Bunbury. Despite a recommendation to block the move altogether, councillors instead voted to allow the club to relocate there for a two-year trial with several conditions. The conditions included making sure any event the club holds at the reserve complies with event permit agreements as well as having an on-site storage container for the club’s equipment. Bunbury & Districts Dog Club president Wally Cook said while it would have been preferable for the permanent move to be endorsed, it was a good starting point. “At this point, we’ll take what we can get,” he said. “I think after two years, I don’t think the council will have a problem in potentially allowing us to stay because we have held events there before and they have been a success. “We had an event out there last year and everything went very smoothly and we have another dog show on the way in a few weeks.” Mr Cook said the club had been pushing to move from Hay Park in Bunbury due to a lack of facilities for storage. “A couple of years ago, we had a small building that we kept our equipment in and also used as a little office space but that was knocked down to make way for a new pavilion,” he said. “We didn’t have as much storage in the new pavilion because it was a booking-based facility so we had to put all of our stuff in a sea container which isn’t ideal for us. “While we’re still going to have to keep our equipment in a sea container for the next few years, operating out at Eaton seems more promising to us.” Mr Cook said the club had been moving operations within Hay Park for a number of years, which has had a detrimental effect on membership numbers. “Because we haven’t had a concrete spot, people were unsure of where we were,” he said. The club remains in discussions with the council to begin the preliminary stages of the trial.