S.P.C.A. cares for 25 puppies

Press, 5 June 1982, Page 1

S.P.C.A. cares for 25 puppies

A rough-coated collie and two of her five remaining pups are held by Barbara Ash, a trainee S.P.C.A. officer, at the S.P.C.A. animal home in Wilmers Road, Sockburn, yesterday. The border collie, which had dug a hole under a flax bush in a Hei Hei churchyard to have her pups, was found last week. Originally, she had seven pups but two have since died.

The collie is one of three bitches with puppies which have come into the care of the S.P.C.A. in the last few days. New'- homes will be sought for the puppies when they are seven weeks old. • A labrador-cross and her 11,pups are being cared for by the S.P.C.A. after a call to a Riccarton house. The bitch and her pups had been abandoned. Staff were Called to a new drain on a Marshland farm yesterday where workmen had found a German shepherd arid her nine pups. The animals would have been buried if workmen had not seen them, said Miss Ash.

“People are not facing up to their responsibilities,” she said. “They get a pup and when it grows up and has puppies they don’t want to know.” . '

Miss Ash suggested a reduction' in registration fees for spayed bitches as an incentive for owners. Registration and hydatids fees in Christchurch City are $25 a year.