I am a supporter of several rescues in my city of Manchester. Each day, they are getting overwhelmed by the amount of requests to take on unwanted pets by owners that either no longer want them, cannot afford to keep them or cannot find suitable accommodation for them. If the rescue cannot take them, they are often abandoned on the streets without food or shelter.

This is now what I, and many others, believe to be a national crisis. You only have to ask a couple of animal rescues in your area to see how bad the problem has become and how many requests per day to take on abandoned animals they get.

This cannot continue on this scale.

Owners need to be held accountable and responsible for their animals, and abandoning an animal should be made illegal, with owners being prosecuted and banned from keeping animals if they do abandon them. There are many provisions available for owners that cannot afford to keep their animals, such as pet food banks, discount neutering and microchipping, vet healthcare plans and more. Help is almost always available to enable someone to keep their animals, there is no excuse for abandoning them in this day and age.

Please help to solve this national crisis by making it a criminal offence to abandon any animal.