Animal charities in Merseyside preparing for huge spike in reports of cruelty this Summer

The RSPCA has revealed a significant increase in dogs being victims of cruelty since the start of the pandemic with 10 reports AN HOUR - and this is expected to increase in Merseyside with a spike in reports during the summer.

New figures released today as part of the animal welfare charity’s Cancel Out Cruelty campaign show that despite being man’s best friend there were 44,427 reports of dog cruelty made to the RSPCA involving 92,244 dogs last year.

That is 253 a day or more than 10 AN HOUR - and includes 10,228 dogs reported as beaten. This shows a significant 16% increase since 2020 - when cruelty reports involving 79,513 dogs were made to the charity.

In Merseyside there were 1,399 reports of dog cruelty during this period to the RSPCA. Of these 263 were classed as intentional harm.

With more people becoming dog owners during lockdown the charity is concerned the number of cruelty incidents involving canines will increase - particularly in the summer when it traditionally sees a surge in calls to its cruelty line.

There are now an estimated 13 million dog owners in the UK, according to the Pet Food Manufacturing report, up from 12.5 million the year before (2021) and from 9 million in 2020 - with lockdown causing an unprecedented surge in demand.

The RSPCA receives around 90,000 calls to its cruelty line every month involving all animals but in the summer (July and August) calls rise to 134,000 a month and reports of cruelty soar to 7,600 each month - a heartbreaking 245 every day.

The charity is also worried more dogs will fall victim to abuse and abandonments as the cost of living crisis takes hold adding financial pressures to pet owners.

Anthony Joynes is an RSPCA Inspector in the North West, he's been telling us why this time of year is always their busiest :

"The dog injures itself and there's a hefty bill to deal with and it doesn't get dealt with or there's an argument in the house and the dog gets in the way and receives a violent beating.

"That's the kind of thing we're seeing more of through our call centre and they're obviously massively distressing to deal with.

"A dog being beaten won't forget that and it's behaviour will change as a result. We deal with people all of the time who regularly beat their dogs, they may not be injuring them but they hit them for all sorts of reasons and it ruins the dog psychologically and you end up with a relationship born out of fear instead of love".

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