Depressed

Three days running I've had desperate people ringing late at night with animals who need to see a vet urgently. At that time of day it costs £100 just for the consultation and at the moment there isn't any way we could afford to pay that much each evening because it would mean an annual spend of £36,500. That  would be more than the annual cost of running our clinic, which treats ten times as many animals each year.

Last night I was called about a dog who had been badly mauled by another and needed £700 of emergency treatment, followed by transfer to our clinic for surgery on his broken leg. Again - that's just not possible for us and it is tragic that the owner hadn't registered his dog at our clinic because that would have meant our own veterinary provider would have been prepared to see him at a much lower rate.

By and large these are not people who are bad owners or unwilling to pay for routine veterinary care, but they just don't have the resources to find £100 at 5 minutes notice. Getting the animals signed over to us to be rehomed is not a solution because it would just add the cost of boarding to the treatment cost which we have not got.

Please give us your support so that we can do at least something to help these animals in future. Any saleable unwanted items that you can donate to our shops at 188 Mill Road or 61 Burleigh Street will help us to raise more funds.

We also need fundraising volunteers and more volunteers to help out with running the shops and collecting items to sell. Could you organise a "donate, don't dump" day at your place of work, with everyone being asked to bring in at least one item to give to the shops?