RSPCA: Home alone – the pets left behind while their owners jet off on holiday
As the main summer holiday getaway peaks this weekend, RSPCA inspectors are reporting calls to houses where pets have just been left with piles of food and no-one looking after them.
The RSPCA always sees a rise in abandoned animals during the summer months and inspectors are warning that leaving pets home alone is not acceptable.
Under the Animal Welfare Act owners have a legal responsibility to ensure their pets’ welfare and to provide for their animal’s needs at all times – including when the owners are on holiday.
RSPCA superintendent Richard Seddon said: “Being left home alone with a pile of food does not mean their needs are being taken care of. Owners don’t want to get a call while they are lying on the beach to tell them to come back home to take care of their pet so we are saying – make proper arrangements for someone to care for your pet or put them in pet boarding.”
In just nine weeks from the beginning of May the RSPCA has taken in more than one and a half thousand abandoned animals and we receive a call asking for help on average every 30 seconds.
Supt Seddon said: “To leave a much loved family pet for days at a time with just a pile of food that may go off especially in this hot weather may endanger the animal’s life and is simply not common sense.”
The public is urged to be vigilant and alert the RSPCA if they become aware of an abandoned animal.
You can help us continue our vital work of rescuing, rehabilitating and rehoming animals across England and Wales by texting RUBBISH to 70800 to give £5 today.
ENDS
RSPCA, Wilberforce Way, Southwater, Horsham, West Sussex RH13 9RS
Press office direct lines: 0300 123 0244/0288 Fax: 0303 123 0099
Duty press officer (evenings and weekends) Tel: 08448 222888 and ask for pager number 828825
Email: press@rspca.org.uk Website: www.rspca.org.uk
Don't treat animals like rubbish. Thousands of vulnerable: animals will be abandoned this summer, many in out of the way places like bins, in skips and on wasteland simply leaving them to die. Will you help us rescue them? www.rspca.org.uk/rubbish
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