Couple share home with 5 guinea pigs, 10 dogs, 22 cats and a rabbit

5:00pm Tuesday 5th August 2008

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SHARING your home with a pet or two is quite normal... but imagine living with 22 cats, ten dogs, five guinea pigs and a rabbit.

The number of four pawed, bushy tailed creatures inhabiting the modest Canvey bungalow of Carol Day and her husband Peter demonstrate the couple’s lifelong devotion to animals.

Carol, 64 and Peter 67, have been taking in waifs and strays at their home in since 1986 when they founded the Canvey Independent Cat and Dog Sanctuary.

But unlike most animal centres, the pair do not try to find homes for their feline or canine lodgers, they simply give them a permanent home where they can feel loved.

Carol said: “We just can’t stand to see an animal be put down because it doesn’t have a home – so we give them somewhere to live.

“We have lots of cats here in their twilight years and we give them a place where they can live out their final years in peace and with some affection and love.

“There’s no way we could find many of our animals homes even if we tried. People will often take in young puppies or kittens, but don’t want to touch older cats or dogs.

“We have to pay all the vets’ bills and costs out of our own pockets, which hasn’t always been easy. But sometimes we get donations or raise extra cash through holding weekly jumble sales.”

So with countless animals mingling around their home and garden, do the couple have the most understanding neighbours in the country?

“Our neighbours have always been very supportive. It’s a good job because if they weren’t it could make our life really difficult,” said Carol.

“Bob Spink, the Castle Point MP has also been great to us, trying to get us funding. But we’ve got a massive garden so there’s plenty of room for the animals to roam.”

Last week statistics released by the RSPCA revealed animal cruelty cases are on the up.

Sickening attacks, such as a young woman filming herself drop-kicking a kitten and a man stabbing his pet dog twice in the neck, are unfortunately among the increasing number of horiffic cases each year which end in court.

Carol is less than impressed with the figures: “It makes me so angry to think any human could hurt an animal,” she said.

“I just don’t know what possess someone to do it. I think it’s because these yobs wouldn’t dare attack another person in case they fight back, so instead they hurt a defenceless animal.

“They must think it makes them look big. It’s disgusting.

“I’ve taken in cats and dogs over the years which have been mis-treated by their owners and it’s very sad. We do our best to make the animals feel loved and to win back their trust, which can be difficult.”

Carol and Peter – a former Environment Agency worker – are both retired.

Carol stressed: “We’ll keep taking them in until the day we die. We hope we continue to get donations to help us continue our work.”