High Hopes Dog Rescue 'seriously questioning its future'

High Hopes Dog Rescue is seriously questioning if it should continue after revealing it has experienced the hardest financial year on record. 

Since 2018, the Worcestershire-based charity has rehomed over 2,000 dogs but a recent decline in adoptions means it has been paying for dogs to remain in kennels - a cost it cannot afford.

Keeping a dog in the kennels costs the charity £2,500 per year.

The charity said it is not feasible to keep the dogs in kennels indefinitely and they are running out of options.

Volunteers Drea Hinton, Paula McDonald and Sarah Pittaway (Image: Newsquest) "What are we supposed to do with the dogs who have spent 18 months so far in kennels?" they said.

"Do we start putting them to sleep just because we can’t afford to keep them there?

"It's just not feasible to continue to keep them in kennels indefinitely.

"Our bill just gets higher and higher.

"Without adoptions or donations, we are constantly at a loss.

"We have returns waiting to come in and constantly being pushed to take them sooner than we actually have space.

"We have had people threaten to put them to sleep or take them to other rescues if we don't act quickly enough.

"We are taking very few dogs in but we are seeing so much suffering that we just can't help anymore."

The charity said it has so many lovely dogs in need of a home—most of which have not received interest in months while for some it has been years.

It said it sees so many dogs needing help and is powerless to do anything because of a lack of donations and adopters. 

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She added:  "We are at the breaking point of what we are able to continue to do.

"Our vet bill is large and our kennel bills are huge.

"We desperately need funds and a fundraising team to keep on top of this.

"We are a small team and put in a lot of hours to keep up with what we already have to do.

"None of us have enough time to dedicate to fundraising."

The charity has appealed to anyone who would like to foster or adopt a dog or who is willing to donate to get in touch with them by emailing highhopesrescue@gmail.com.