As well as helping the homeless and their dogs throughout the year working with a number of homeless charities in London, The Mayhew also attends the annual Crisis at Christmas to give homeless guests’ dogs a thorough health check and preventative veterinary care.

This year our Vet, Dr. Emily Richardson BSC MRCVS and Animal Welfare Officers, AJ and Paul, attended the Crisis at Christmas Dog Service. The dogs are brought by their owners to a specially built, temporary dog shed over the Christmas period. Each dog has their own pen and plenty of comfortable bedding, quilts and blankets where they can spend the time being supervised and cared for by Crisis volunteers while their owners receive help and support from Crisis.

Dr. Emily gave all of the dogs a thorough health examination to ensure they were in good physical health. All dogs were also given flea and worming treatments.  They were provided with food and supplies to see them through the winter and lighted collars to make them visible at night, waterproof jackets, warm fleece jumpers and leads. A big thank you to our supporters for donating items to help the dogs.

Dr. Emily says: “This is an ideal opportunity for the owners to have their dogs undergo a health check with a vet, especially elderly dogs who haven’t received regular veterinary attention. We are able to identify and monitor ongoing health issues and we can also give the dogs the preventative veterinary care that is really important to maintain their health.” This has been Emily’s first year at Crisis at Christmas. She says: “The Crisis volunteers are caring for and walking the dogs as well as communicating with and supporting their owners. It’s been an amazing experience for me and I hope I can do it all again next year.”

Some of the dogs seen by our team include 16 year old Brandi. Her owner, Paul, has had Brandi since she was a puppy. Blood samples were taken so that we can check her general health, liver and kidneys at our Vet Clinic. One year old Benny was given a thorough health and dental check and preventative veterinary care as were 15 year old Mitzi and 12 year old Mac who are owned by Shirley. Misty, Smudge and Jimmy were also given a health check and preventative treatment.

Kerry Smith, Crisis’ Dog Services Organiser, has been volunteering with Crisis for the past six years. She says: “We have received amazing, continued help, advice and support from The Mayhew and have developed a strong working relationship. The work that they do is invaluable and it is good to know that our guests’ dogs have a clean bill of health.”

Mayhew Animal Welfare Officer, Alisa Ford, says: “We work with the homeless and their dogs all year round. We build long-term relationships with the dogs’ owners so that the owners can call the Animal Welfare Officers directly whenever in need. We can detect early on any health issues that the dogs may have so that we can refer them to our on-site Vet Clinic. We offer free neutering and health checks as well as a microchip scan to make sure their chip details are up-to-date. We also offer behavioural advice and provide food, lighted collars that are visible at night, warm waterproof jackets, worming tablets and flea treatments.”

You can read more about our work with the homeless here, or donate to our work here.