The cost of living crisis and housing crisis means animal charities are 'overwhelmed' with dog surrender requests.
Galway charity Madra says this has been 'relentless' for months and it's unable to help anyone outside of Galway or Mayo lately.
Many of the dogs it's receiving lately have behavioural issues, likely because of Covid isolation and lockdowns and a sudden re-opening.
Sadly, we have experienced a surge in the number of people looking to surrender their dogs directly into our care. We almost always have a long waiting list and lately that list has gotten even longer.😭
Thread 1/8 pic.twitter.com/ONP5HlBbTo— MADRA (@MADRADogRescue) August 7, 2022
Doubley Hard
Founder Marina Fiddler says landlord issues are coming up more and more often too:
"See this is an issue for humans. Humans can't find accommodation, so a human with a pet is finding it doubley hard.
"The cost of living is going to be big, we've had a few owners contacting us to say they can't afford basic vet care, or they can't afford to pay their insurance premiums for pet insurance.
"The knock-on effect is that more and more dogs are in trouble."
Advice
Marina has this advice for people with or without a dog if they're keen to help out:
"There are still people that believe it is okay to breed dogs, we do want people to curtail any breeding at the moment."
"We want people I suppose to open their hearts and their houses, see if they could, or if now is the time to take on a dog."
"If you have a dog that's got behaviour issues or is causing problems, get at trainer."
"Try to deal with the problem rather than getting rid of the dog."
