Thousands of animals are abandoned every day. Not just dogs and cats but horses, ferrets, rabbits, hamsters. If it lives and breathes, it can be chucked on the street it seems in this sad, disposable society.

 

The majority I guess, are simply tossed out like yesterday's news. The luckiest of these unfortunate creatures may be taken by their once loving owners to the local pet rescue, where the range of excuses for dumping another soul onto an overburdened system beggars belief.

 

To tell a heartsick shelter volunteer that the six month old Great Dane you are handing over, '...just got too big!' is to risk a belt in the mouth, but this and other statements just like it are heard in rescue shelters every day.

 

While a small number of the hundreds of thousands of abandoned animals that the shelters take in each year may simply have wandered away from home and an even smaller number are eventually reunited with their families, the vast majority have been kicked to the kerb by people who once loved them.

 

This kind of callousness is very hard to understand. Does a change in the owner's circumstances justify it? The loss of a job perhaps, a divorce, the arrival of a baby? None of it seems to be enough to condemn an animal to starve or freeze to death on the streets.

 

And what on earth are these people teaching their children? I like to imagine that one day in the distant future when little Billy drops his ancient Mum off at the roadside he will tell her, 'Now, come on mum, you know you are getting too old and smelly and besides with the new baby on the way, we just don't have time for you anymore.'.

 

What those who at least have the humanity to take their animals to a suitable shelter. How can they handover the dog, the collar, the lead, his favourite toy and then turn and walk away? I have no answer to that but I often wonder just how many of these animals are thrown out or handed in because the owner did not do any breed research.

 

How difficult would it be to recognise that a border collie, one of the most intelligent of dogs and one that is born to work, may become destructive and hard to handle if cooped up in a flat all day?

 

How much of a stretch of the imagination to see that a cat has claws that may do considerable damage to your furniture if it is not trained to scratch elsewhere?

 

How much foresight to prepare for the day that your child's pony has been outgrown and replaced in his or her affections by a larger model or the latest pop band.

 

So part of the reason for this website is to encourage everyone to do some research before choosing your next four legged friend. Follow the links to breeds on this website and also please consider rescue. Each of the breed pages has (or will have) links to pure breed rescues and there are other resources throughout the site.

 

Here are a few Rescue articles and stories to get you going. If you have any rescue and adoption stories you would like to share, then please send them in.