Official announcement of the name change will take place on 9 October to coincide with promotion of the charity’s annual stray dogs survey.
Press officer Claire Bicknell said of the decision: ‘We just felt the time was right for a more modern name that reflected what we do, with “dogs” in the title.
‘Surprisingly, many people don’t know what “canine” means any longer and we have enquiries about whether we re-home cats’.
The renaming of the charity has been handled in-house and overseen by head of communications Deana Selby.
Bicknell added that Aurelia PR has been hired to assist the in-house team with promoting the rebrand. This account starts in January next year.
This is the first name change for the charity, which was formed in 1891.
