PET lovers are urgently needed to help find some dogs a new home because kennels used by an animal welfare charity are overflowing.

Volunteers at the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Worcester and Mid-Worcestershire branch have been inundated with owners wanting the charity to take their dogs off them.

The branch found 66 dogs a new home last year, but it has been a different tale in recent months.

As a result, 10 dogs are currently being kept at Brookend Boarding Kennels - double the capacity of the private kennels' in Stocks Lane, Leigh Sinton, near Malvern - two have been found places at Turnpike Boarding Kennels and Cattery, Defford, while another is being kept at Ambleside Veterinary Clinic, Tolladine Road, Tolladine, Worcester.

RSPCA volunteer Geraldine Haynes said: "We have a real problem with our dogs. We cannot take any more unless we can find homes for some of them. It's a difficult situation to be in really. We're having to make a waiting list. There's about 15 on the list and it's getting bigger by the day."

She said one dog, Jake, pictured right, has been under the charity's care since October.

"He's our longest stayer," said Mrs Haynes.

"He's a lovely dog, but people just pass him by because he's so exuberant.

"He would calm down if he had a loving home to go to."

She said the self-funded charity, which gets no financial help from its head office, has always had dogs in its care from people whose marriages have broken up, moved house, or just realised how much of a responsibility they are.

"It's an on-going problem," she said. "It does seem to go in phases but it has been particularly bad recently.

"It wouldn't be so bad if we had people coming forward interested in re-homing them but it's just been people wanting us to take more in."

Anybody interested in providing a new home for a dog should contact Geraldine Haynes on 01886 822083.

She said all of the dogs are neutered, vaccinated and micro-chipped before they go out to new homes.