New RSPCA figures show dog rehoming rise in lockdown
Dog rehoming soared during lockdown as families spending more time at home due to the pandemic and home-working sought the companionship of a fourlegged friend.
New figures, released on Tuesday by the RSPCA revealed 4,877 dogs were rehomed in 2020, despite the Coronavirus pandemic and lockdown.
In West Sussex, the RSPCA rehomed 23 dogs in 2020. In East Sussex, it rehomed a total of 169 dogs.
RSPCA dog welfare expert Dr Samantha Gaines said: “At the beginning of lockdown we were concerned about how difficult it might be to rehome animals, especially as we had to pause all rehoming for several weeks until we were able to come up with a new rehoming model that adhered to the government’s guidelines.
“Once we had approval from Defra to relaunch rehoming, we were staggered by the levels of interest we had in our animals; particularly our dogs. We saw an unprecedented level of interest in rehoming dogs from families who were spending more time at home and wanted the company of a furry friend.
“We had 68 per cent more visits to the Find A Pet section of our website between March 23 – the first day of lockdown – and December 31 compared to the previous year; and views of our ‘rehoming a dog’ information spiked by 87 per cent.
“Many of our centres received hundreds of applications for individual dogs and some canines were being snapped up before they’d even been advertised online.”
During the pandemic, the charity launched virtual rehominginordertocontinue rehoming animals while still sticking to the Government’s restrictions on social distancing and non-essential travel.
To see all the animals the RSPCA has available for rehoming, visit www.rspca. org.uk/findapet