Cost of living crisis: owners hand over 421 animals to Woodgreen Pets Charity because they can't afford them

A Cambridgeshire-based pets charity has announced that its care centre is at full capacity as hundreds of owners are unable to afford the cost of looking after their pets.

Woodgreen Pets Charity has announced that its Cambridgeshire animal care centre has seen more pets handed over to them than ever before because of the rising cost of energy bills and inflation.

The charity has brought 421 pets into its care centre, in Godmanchester, between June and August this year. It has taken in 234 cats, 73 dogs and 114 small pets.

In total, it has supported 721 people with 1,264 pets through its community outreach work. This includes providing £20,200 in grants to financially support pet owners who need it most.

"The volume of people relinquishing ownership of their pets has increased,” Chris Bennett, community support manager at Woodgreen Pets Charity, said.

"There are now more people who cannot afford to feed their pets or afford to take them to the vets.

"Some people come to us wanting to give up their pets but many still want to keep them and need our support to make that possible.”

Chris said that because more people are being forced to give up their pets, and fewer people are coming forward to rehome them, the charity is unable to take in any more animals.

The centre now has a waiting list between 300 to 360 pets.

"We don’t want to turn away pets but we don’t want animals to suffer,” he said.

"We offer owners advice on how to make pet ownership cheaper and sustainable in both the short and long term.

"We will continue to take in animals that meet our emergency criteria whose lives could be severely compromised without our help.”

As well as offering financial support in the form of grants, the charity’s outreach work includes offering free health and wellbeing checks for pets and the use of food banks to provide free pet food.

The charity has supported 230 pets through food banks – averaging at three to five days’ of food per pet.