Sir – Over the Christmas period hundreds of dogs, including many puppies, have been cruelly abandoned. They end up in the local pound where they are given the statutory seven days to be reclaimed. After that period if the pound is full, the dog can be put to sleep. Thus hundreds of perfectly healthy and friendly dogs, who have all been someone’s pet at some points of their lives, are discarded in this throwaway society of ours.

Pickles, a lively and loving ten-month-old cross-breed nearly didn’t make it to Christmas, as his time was up in a pound three weeks ago. He has been living with a foster family in Abingdon, but is now looking for a forever home, together with many other rescued pound dogs.

Animal shelters are mostly closed over the Christmas period and are already full to bursting, so it has fallen to volunteers driving around the country, even on Christmas Eve, to save as many unwanted dogs as possible.

These people and the small shelters who take them in, are the unsung heroes of the rescue world.

Over this Christmas period the situation has been particularly dire. If you could offer a foster or forever home to one of the many pound dogs like Pickles, looking for a chance of life or make a donation to help with emergency kennelling please email dogwatchuk@hotmail.co.uk, juliaclark275@aol.com, or call 07969 482 144.

Julia Hammett, Oxford