Animal Control supervisor Kevin Coutts said it was often a thankless task but his team loved animals and did everything to reunite dogs with their owners before having to either re-home them or put them down.
He said the last year had been hugely successful in terms of getting owners to register their dogs. A door-to-door registration drive saw the most dogs registered in Rotorua since records began.
Today 93 per cent of the district's dogs are now registered.
With a capacity of about 55 dogs, the pound is to be extended in the near future. A new puppy kennel has already been built to house puppies during the winter months with added insulation and heating.
"Because it's bloody freezing up here at night," Mr Coutts said.
He said the pound was almost always full to capacity. "Some dogs we can house together, but with so many pitbull type dogs coming through we have to keep them one to a kennel.
"We could have 100 kennels and they would still be full."
Sadly, when a dog is impounded only half of them are reclaimed by owners.
"We re-home what we can but there's only so much we can do."
Which leads us to the downside of the job. Mr Coutts says even after 12 years in the role it was always hard to have to put abandoned animals down.
An average of almost three dogs a day are being put down at the pound - many would make ideal family pets.
The council hires a local vet to humanely euthanise the animals.
"Some councils still shoot them, but we don't. I wouldn't ask any of my staff to shoot a dog, it's not a pleasant experience."