2022 YEAR IN REVIEW IN LONDON

AT OUR SHELTER:

• We saw a decline in people expressing interest in adopting, while at the same time seeing an increase in people giving up pets for rehoming. This was due to a combination of the pressures of the cost-of-living crisis on household finances and lifestyle changes in a post-pandemic world such as pet owners needing to go back into the office or not having as much time for their animals.

• We’ve seen an increase in dogs and cats coming in with behavioural problems; they often need more care, require more behavioural modification and are harder to rehome. This is an additional reason for the observed dip in adoption numbers year-onyear.

• Due to the current pressures on household finances, people have been less inclined to take on dogs and cats with ongoing health conditions.

• We saw a notable increase in stray dogs coming into us. Of the 76 that came in as stray, 50 were returned to their owners.

• Approximately half of cats coming into our care were strays and half were signed over to us as their owners could no longer look after them.

• Over summer, there was a sharp increase in demand from pet cat owners who could no longer look after their cats so we halted Pet Refuge intakes to enable us to temporarily prioritise capacity for these cats at risk of abandonment. In addition, through Pet Refuge, we took in more dogs in 2022 than in the prior year.

• We made physical improvements to the shelter, including to our Kitten Garden and Cattery.

IN THE COMMUNITY:

• We paused our Trap Neuter Return (TNR) service while we launched a feral cat population survey in Harlesden to find out how many feral cats might be living there.

• We continued to work with Gypsy, Roma and traveller communities, homeless shelters and hostels and individuals temporarily needing help by providing them with advice, support with disease prevention, veterinary treatments and the essentials to care for their pets.

• We continued to provide advice and support to help pet owners better understand dogs and cats and their needs.

• We identified and helped dogs and cats at risk of abandonment or becoming stray and helped those living in low welfare environments to find improved conditions or loving homes.

• Our TheraPaws service made 40 therapeutic dog visits benefiting 553 people in 2022.

IN OUR VETERINARY CLINIC:

• Despite experiencing challenges with recruitment, which has been a UK-wide issue since Brexit, our teams were able to maintain treatment levels in line with 2021 and helped scores of dogs and cats and pet owners.

• We saw a slight dip in neutering numbers but overall there was an increase in the number of vaccinations, microchipping and other veterinary treatments.

OVERSEAS: IN KABUL, AFGHANISTAN

• Our field and clinic teams were back to working at full capacity following the change of government in 2021 and worked with dedication on our programmes in the capital, Kabul.

• Our annual dog population survey showed that our work had resulted in 69% of the population of roaming dogs being neutered.

• We reached the milestone of neutering 30,000 dogs in three years in August 2022.

• We completed the fourth cycle of the mass rabies vaccination programme in Kabul at the end of September 2022.

• We responded to the authorities’ request to extend our programmes to a further six districts on the outskirts of Kabul from October 2022 following a dog population survey in these areas.

IN TBILISI, GEORGIA

• Our team delivered pop-up neutering and vaccination clinics in chosen regions following dog population surveys to estimate the number of dogs to target. There was great success in Akhmeta, Kakheti, where following our interventions nearly 78% of the roaming dogs were neutered.

• In October, we opened the first solely not-forprofit veterinary clinic in Georgia in Tbilisi.

• We strengthened our collaborative work with Tbilisi authorities to provide help and advice to the municipal shelter, with particular focus on aiding them to successfully improve their infection control measures.