The Hour

The Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Scottish SPCA) is an animal welfare charity which aims to prevent cruelty to animals and encourage kindness and humanity in their treatment. The charity receives no government or lottery funding and relies on public donations to continue rescuing and re-homing Scotland’s abandoned, neglected and defenceless animals.

Wendy Hamilton, who studied veterinary nursing, has been working with the Scottish SPCA for nine years. She told The Hour: “We get a lot of dogs, whether they are unwanted or whether they are stray dogs. Last year we re-homed over 2,500 dogs.”

One such dog is Sunny D, who is looking for a new family to love him. The five-year-old greyhound came into the care of the Scottish SPCA recently through a local police station after he was handed in by a member of the public. He had been found wandering the streets.

The charity has been unable to reunite him with his owner so he needs to find a new family to love him. He is a very gentle and sweet dog who loves to spend his days going on long walks or being lazy and snoozing in his bed.

“Sunny D would be suited to almost any home because he is such a friendly and happy dog,” said Wendy. “All dogs should be microchipped and every dog we re-home we microchip them.

“He wasn’t chipped and had no collar or tag on so we didn’t know who his owner was. He’s got tattoos on his ears which suggest he probably was a racing dog, but he’s a stray so we don’t know for definite.”

Sunny D is clean in his kennel, suggesting that he won’t need to be house trained. He will also be neutered before he is re-homed. As with any greyhound, his new owners will need to take care around small animals and cats.

Wendy said: “Getting an older dog they can be more settled and are more likely to be house trained. Some of them may have had road accidents and they will need a settling in period but they’re just fantastic. We do initial checks and then things like home checks can be done.”

RELATED LINKS

• See the Scottish SPCA website for more information on re-homing
• Springer spaniel Ben needs a new family to love him
• Gus longs to find a loving family to adopt him