RSPCA called to 2,211 dog incidents this year
Animal charity RSPCA has dealt with 2,211 incidents so far this year involving dogs in the West Midlands, new figures reveal.
It comes as fears have been raised that the impact of the coming recession and ‘lockdown puppies’ will hit the already-struggling rescue centres hard in the coming months.
RSPCA said there were 189,800 reports related to dogs were made to its emergency hotline in 2019 and 45,181 dog incidents have been dealt with this year up to September 29. And the charity fears the next year could be even worse.
During lockdown, Google searches for ‘puppies near me’ increased by 650 per cent with 15,000 searches compared to 2,000 in January.
And Government figures show the numbers of licences issued for the commercial import of dogs more than doubled from 5,964 in June to August 2019, to 12,733 for the same three-month period this year.
This raises concerns among RSPCA experts that an impending dog welfare crisis could be on the horizon in 2021 as families return to normal life and may no longer be able to take care of the puppy they bought during lockdown.
Coupled with a fear that the end of furlough and the deepening recession will hit families hard and some may no longer be able to afford their pets, this could put pressure on the already-stretched resources of rescue centres.
RSPCA chief executive Chris Sherwood said: “We know that there are not enough puppies bred in the UK to meet the demands and, worryingly, there appears to be a surge in puppies coming in from outside the UK.
"The problem with this is that, although breeders from countries like Romania are licensed, we have no way of checking the conditions those animals are being kept in and we fear it could be fuelling cruel puppy farms.”
