The Hour

After Christmas, the Scottish SPCA often find they are inundated with unwanted pets, and the charity is faced with trying to re-home a huge number of animals.

Janet Kirkpatrick, who works for the charity as a kennel assistant, said that many of these pets have been abandoned by people who have simply lost interest in them.

“When we get the animals coming in to us we class them as strays because that’s the only way you can describe them, they’ve maybe wandered out into somebody’s garden or whatever, but a lot of the time they have been abandoned, so we have to take that into account as well," she explained.

Janet finds that pets that are bought for children often lose their appeal quickly. She explained: “Mum and dad are left to clean the animal up, and I can understand that mum and dad get fed up cleaning the animal up and that’s’ how they end up coming (to us).”

Because these animals were pets, they are often domesticated and wouldn’t last long in the wild, so being rescued by the Scottish SPCA is the only hope these poor animals have in their chance of survival.

The Scottish SPCA is currently looking to find loving new homes for many of the animals they have in their centre, from cats and dogs to rabbits, guinea pigs, parrots and even reptiles.

If you’d like to give a pet a good home, visit the Scottish SPCA website, www.scottishspca.org or call the Animal Helpline on 03000 999 999 to find out more.
Boxer Welfare Scotland is also looking to re-home boxers, and Greyhound Rescue Fife is looking for good homes for several of their dogs too.