Rotorua SPCA members kept on their toes with kitten season and doggos

Rotorua SPCA centre manager Lynne Gillies. Photo / Andrew Warner

The Rotorua SPCA centre is being kept on its toes as staff members care for an abundance of cats, kittens, dogs and puppies.

To try to help ease this pressure and free up capacity, the centre has been offering half-price fees to adopt animals. There are just a few days left to take advantage of this, with the offer finishing on January 31.

Centre manager Lynne Gillies says that since the Christmas kitten season, the number of cats/kittens they were taking on had really ramped up.

”It was manageable leading up to Christmas, but now it has gone crazy.

”We are getting more calls about strays with kittens. Just in this last week we have had about eight or 10 ambulance jobs dealing with strays and their kittens.”

Lynne says there used to be a set kitten season, and that you could say it was during the daylight savings period, but in reality, it often kept going.

”Some of the early kittens born around Christmas could have their own in the next couple of months.”

She says this is why they encourage people in the community to get their animals desexed, or to contact the SPCA if they cannot afford to do so.

“If you are struggling financially with your animal contact us, whether it is for desexing or you need help with food for a couple of weeks. We would rather help people keep their animals and to help with desexing to stop the tide of kittens.

“We have community desexing vouchers we can issue and it costs nothing other than contacting us.”

She says a lot of kittens come into the centre quite well looked after, but once the mother has finished feeding is when some people don’t want them any more due to the extra cost.

Lynne says the local centre has also been pretty steady with dogs, and that they had dogs and puppies come in over the Christmas period.

She says they had been delighted to find a home recently for Bailey - a dog which had been waiting at the centre to be adopted for nearly a full year - but that there were now other dogs coming up to 200 days waiting for their forever homes.

To organise a time to visit the centre and see what animals are up for adoption, call (07) 349 2955. You can also view profiles of animals up for adoption at www.spca.nz/centre/rotorua-centre/adoption.