Credit crunch causes RSPCA to turn away dogs
One animal shelter in Derby has been forced to announced it will no longer be able to care of or accept dogs due to a financial crisis.
The Abbey Street RSPCA centre in Derby costs £5,500 per week to run and the managers have said that as a result they can now only take in or care for cats and other small animals. This means any dogs already at the centre will be moved to other nearby centres to find new homes and four members of staff are being made redundant.
RSPCA centre manager, Malcolm Hall, confirmed donations have dropped considerably, presumably due to the credit crunch yet the centre has been running at their maximum capacity for 27 dogs all year and is unable to continue. He continued:
“It has been a big decision but at the moment, with the way things are, we just do not have the funding to be able to care for the dogs as we should. But the worry is that without the dogs, fewer people will come in to look around and we still need donations to look after all the other animals.”
All staff in the RSPCA centre have been requested to re-apply for their jobs.
What many people may not realise is that each individual RSPCA branch is a charity in its own right so does not receive funding from the national RSPCA charity. Although the national charity does need funding to operate on a national basis and to run their central helpline, if there is an RSPCA animal centre close to you, you might want to consider giving a small donation to help with its running costs.
