cruelty

Warning issued over buying puppies after Honiton couple receive life-time dog owning ban

A couple from the Honiton area have recently been banned from selling puppies and handed a life-time ban on owning dogs, prompting council warnings on buying puppies.

East Devon District Council (EDDC) has recently had a flurry of enquiries regarding the buying and selling puppies as well as complaints of alleged unlicensed breeders during lockdown.

The authority has been...

RSPCA appeal for information after bird is cut with scissors

The RSPCA is appealing for information after a dead goldfinch was discovered with a pair of scissors cutting into its neck.

A passerby spotted the bird in Wesley Avenue, Plymouth, on Monday, 20 January and alerted the RSPCA.

Inspector Sarah Morris collected the goldfinch’s body which was found with a broken pair of children’s plastic scissors which had been closed around its...

Cruel summer: One pet dumped every hour, RSPCA reveals

Every year the RSPCA is called out to rescue hundreds of animals across England and Wales after their owners abandon them and in many cases leave them for dead.

In 2015 2,751 animals were rescued by the animal welfare charity with a peak in admissions in July, 534 of those were in Devon.

Now the RSPCA is bracing itself for another summertime influx of dumped animals this year...

Increase in animals needing help in the SW

Figures released today (23 March) by the RSPCA reveal that people being convicted for cruelty in many areas of the South West is on the rise, whilst the number of animals being rescued is also increasing across the region.

Courts in the South West have seen an increase in the number of people convicted for crimes relating to animal welfare, particularly in some of the larger counties....

Complaints investigated by RSPCA rise

The RSPCA’s annual figures for 2014 show that cruelty complaints investigated by the charity in the south west and central England have gone up once again.

More worrying still is that the numbers of complaints involving direct cruelty including beatings, improper killing, mutilation and poisonings formed 12.5% of the total number of complaints.

The charity investigated 28,800...