A woman singlehandedly running a pet food bank in Westbury has raised concerns over the number of pets that will be abandoned due to costs this Christmas.
This comes after The RSPCA, a UK-wide animal rescue charity, officially declared a ‘winter crisis’ and say animal abandonments are spiralling.
According to the charity, numbers have reached a shocking three-year high, with 1,800 incidents of abandonment reported across England and Wales.
“We’re desperately concerned about the coming winter months - abandonments have soared and many rescue centres are full to bursting, so we are facing an unprecedented winter crisis,” said Dermot Murphy, who heads the RSPCA frontline rescue teams.
Although this is happening across the UK, the pet abandonment crisis is particularly hitting home for Jo Robinson, who set up Westbury Pet Foodbank earlier this year.
“The number of people contacting me saying that they need help does vary from month to month, but I’m expecting it to be a lot more over the Christmas period with the cost of living crisis ongoing and Christmas expenses rising,” she admitted.
“I found that there was a big pick up when the children were off for school holidays for six weeks because financially people find school holidays difficult, and sometimes the budget just doesn’t quite stretch far enough.
“It’s definitely something that needs to be discussed because the reality is that animals are being abandoned and it’s horrific.
“It’s often not because the owners don’t want them, but because they simply can’t afford to keep them, especially when something like a big vet bill hits at a bad time like Christmas,” she added.
Ms Robinson believes that fewer people in Wiltshire would abandon their pets if they knew they could get support, but so many people don’t know that help is out there.
“I had noticed that there was lots of support for people in the local area with food banks, but I’d never seen animal food there, so I thought I’d set something up to try and help,” she said.
The Westbury woman runs the foodbank from her home by taking in pet food donations from the local community and then distributing them to those in need who contact the pet food bank.
“There are enough donations coming in, my whole house is full of them and it’s brilliant. But I just wish more people who needed them knew about it.”
Ms Robinson is now urging Wiltshire pet owners who may be financially struggling to care for their pet this winter to get in touch via her Facebook page.
"There shouldn't be any shame in it. We all need help sometimes and I would much rather someone contact me than let their beloved pet go," she added.
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