Our welfare line which provides financial veterinary aid to animals and their owners in need is seeing an unprecedented rise in calls. At it's busiest seeing upwards of 100 calls in a single day. The cost of living crisis along with increasing veterinary costs means that there are huge numbers of animals in need of initial treatment in our local area.
This fund will allow us to continue to support this increase in animals in need as well as being able to help with additional longer term welfare requests such as neutering from people on low incomes.
Since the pandemic numbers continue to rise and we expect them to again this year with an already heavy volume of calls to our line. In 2023 we helped 765 animals through this service at a cost of £71,695 - this is from 570 animals in 2021 at a cost of £45,234. All the money raised in our four charity shops goes towards our local area however with high street pressures and huge increases in running costs generating this income is becoming more of a challenge. This fund will enable us to meet this increase in demand and continue to help animals in South West Somerset
