We are a team of VOLUNTEERS and we rescue, rehabilitate and re-home abandoned cats and kittens. We struggle daily, working incredibly long hours, doing everything we can to help animals, whose wellbeing is our only priority. We need your help, whether it be donations, fostering, volunteering, whatever you can offer - so that we can help even more animals. We are a registered charity, registration number 701001. One of our aims is to obtain dedicated premises where we can help even more animals.
You can message us on this page, call us on 0151 494 0470 or 07745 167170 and whilst we may be unable to help you we can always offer lots of advice.
And for lots more information about us: We are Garston Animal Rescue and we are run and managed by people who are vegan for animal welfare reasons. We support the ethical treatment of all animals, whether they are pet animals, farm animals or wild animals. We are a not for profit organization which rescues, neuters, and rehabilitates abandoned or unwanted animals. The people who answer phone calls, and who run this page and our website are 100% volunteers, which means that we can’t always answer comments as quickly as we’d like. Our dedicated volunteers have other lives too with commitments such as work, families and their own rescue animals. We welcome, and need, more help with all sorts of things, and you can read about this further down. We have a non-destruction policy, except in very sad cases where, for example, following say a road traffic accident an animal has sustained fatal injuries and cannot be successfully treated by a vet.
The rescue began by chance in 1984 with the rescue of a mother cat who, in desperation, had given birth to five kittens in a bin in Canning Place, Liverpool. This dreadful incident served to highlight the plight of animals across the city, and so Garston Animal Rescue was born. We ended up taking in more and more animals, and on the advice of a good friend we decided after a few years of hard struggle to seek charity status. This was granted in 1988.
Current situation - this bit changes from time to time as we feel necessary, to keep you up-to-speed
We are a small rescue with pretty limited resources and can only do so much. We are dependent on the goodwill of volunteers who give up their time selflesslessly to help us and the animals. We are also dependent on funding from the public and are indebted to the kind people who either volunteer or who financially support us and our work. Out of necessity we are only taking in the most urgent/vulnerable cases and sadly having to ask people to email us the details when a case is deemed non-priority. We have advice sheets on quite a few issues, such as How to settle in a new cat or kitten into your household, Coping when someone in family has allergies, How to integrate a new cat with your own cat, Tips to recover your lost cat/dog, etc. Such leaflets are designed to help people manage a situation, to provide a lifeline for them and their animals, and most importantly, to save the lives of animals who would otherwise be destroyed by their owners.
Our Work
Due to our facilities at the moment, the majority of animals in our care are cats. There is a relentless stream of abandoned cats in our city and we are overwhelmed with phone calls from people either wanting to offload their cat or reporting a stray cat or cats in their area. If we have the space we will take in the more vulnerable cases, provide veterinary treatment, which can include worming, flea treatment, neutering and in many cases medical treatment for illness or injury. Strays are routinely checked by us for micro-chips, a simple procedure we whole-heartedly encourage to reduce the number of strays not being reunited with their owners. Where possible our aim is to rehome the cats in our care in suitable forever homes. All adult cats are neutered before they are re-homed. The neutering fee for kittens is included in the re-homing arrangement with new adopters.
Advice and Information
Although we are a small independent charity with limited resources, we do our best to support members of the public with advice and guidance on a whole range of issues, from advice on what to do if you have lost your cat to many aspects of caring for your pets. For more information and advice, go to www.garstonanimalrescue.com and click on Information.
What are feral cats?
Feral cats are simply cats who have had little or no human contact. When a un-neutered cat is dumped on the streets it will inevitably breed. A female cat has the potential to get pregnant from 4 months old and will give birth to an average of five kittens. The kittens, who are forced to grow up with no human contact will become feral and so the cycle will continue when the female kittens are old enough to breed. Within months just one un-neutered female cat can lead to a colony of feral cats and kittens, born unnecessarily into a life of malnutrition and homelessness. All this could be avoided, so we work with feral cats.
Our work with feral cats
We have a trap, neuter and return policy for feral cats. We humanely trap feral cats, take then to the vet to be neutered, health checked, wormed and flea-treated. We then allow the cats to recover for a period of seven days before returning them back to their original site. We are only able to return feral cats to a site where they are being regularly fed and have adequate shelter. In too many situations feral cats are unable to be returned to their original site. This may be due to inadequate care – they may not be being fed or perhaps there are unsafe circumstances, eg, they may be being persecuted by people or very often because the area where they are living is unsuitable – a derelict building which is due for demolition, for example. In these situations the Rescue, where possible, will try to offer sanctuary to these cats. This is a huge long-term pressure on the rescue, when you consider the care and financial responsibility needed to sustain these cats for an average of 16 years.
What funding do we get from the Government/Council?
None. We get no council or government funding and rely on the income from our two charity shops and donations we receive from the public. Why not take a little look at our Liverpool shop’s page at https://www.facebook.com/garstonanimalrescueshop/- or simply visit the shop at 62 Aigburth Road.
A massive THANK YOU to our volunteers and supporters!
We could never have managed all this without you, whether you help behind the scenes by feeding and cleaning up after our many cats, whether you help put stuff on our page, whether you do home-checks (essential to ensure cats go to the good homes they deserve), whether you help with the admin, whether you quietly get on and provide support and essential advice when all else seems to be crashing around us - you know who you are! Thank you from the bottom of our hearts, you are amazing! We love you and our animals adore and need you ###xx
Our future?
We need to get proper premises where our long-term animals can run free, and where we can give sanctuary to wildlife, horses and other animals too. We also want to use part of our premises to put on events, including giving presentations on animal care, especially to children as they are our future, and the future carers of animals.
How you can help us ....
Please make a donation, every penny counts
Caring for our animals around the clock providing food and shelter takes money. We are always grateful for donations, no matter how little as every penny goes towards helping animals one way or another. We are always also really appreciative of donated bedding, cat food (all our cats, especially the sick, elderly and long-term ones really enjoy sardines, pilchards, chicken and tasty pouches of quality food, as this helps them feel so much better), cleaning products, whatever you think may help us. You can donate by:
Paypal, reference [email protected]
2. BACS payment direct to our bank account: Account name - Garston Animal Rescue, Sort Code - 08-90-86, Account No - 50212068.
3. Send a cheque to Garston Animal Rescue, 29 Broughton Drive, Liverpool L19 0PB, made payable to Garston Animal Rescue.
4. Donate by text - Text ‘GARSTON’ to 70085 to donate £5. And for other amounts you can text ‘GAR10’ to donate £10 or ‘GAR20’ for £20, basically ‘GAR..’ followed by the number in pounds you want to donate. It’ll do any number up to 20. All to 70085.
If you can’t donate then maybe put on a fund-raiser, to raise essential funds .......
Fundraise and help us to help even more animals!
Help us to do more for animals! We need to move, but we need money to buy proper premises. Maybe you could put on a small fundraiser for us. Every penny raised helps us to realise our dream of getting a proper sanctuary for the animals. Thank you for anything at all you can do. Here are a few ideas to think about .....
A photo competition at your work! All bring in a picture of themselves as a baby or toddler and everyone has to guess who it is! People pay a small donation to enter.
Car-Boot Sale Have a clear-out and sell your unwanted things at a car boot. Amazing what you can find!
Cake Sale Hold a cake sale at work, and get a few people to bring in home-made cakes. Then sell them off by the slice, or people just pay a suggested donation, whatever you think would work best.
Dress-down-at-work-day! See if your manager will allow you to hold a dress-down day where you can wear jeans, or any fancy-dress, and people pay a donation to join in the larks.
Quiz Night Hold a quiz night in a pub. Most pubs are happy with this as they get all the money from the drinks, but everyone has to pay something to join in the Quiz Night.
Your work’s Charity of the Year See if your work would agree to have Garston Animal Rescue as their chosen Charity of the Year, even if not this year, then the following year. Could be some of the staff will be glad of a change from the usual big national charity.
Donate and hour’s pay See if your manager would be ok with your asking colleagues if they’d be willing to donate an hour’s pay, or an agreed sum, to Garston Animal Rescue, and maybe your firm could match this!
Sponsored walk, swim, dog-walk, litter-pick, etc. – have fun and make the local area look better! And get your friends and family to sponsor you in aid of this Rescue.
Sponsored no-sweets week! Give up something for a week! Donate the sponsor money to us!
Donate your skills! Whatever you do best, perhaps you’re a hairdresser, or a beautician, a dog-groomer, a gardener? Maybe you could offer a hair-do, garden tidy-up, dog-groom, or how about cleaning/washing/ironing/car-washing – offer to do this for your neighbours, family, friends, agree a fee and donate this to us.
Movie Night Invite friends to a get-together at yours, eg, afternoon tea or a movie night, etc, charge a donation for people to come.
Raffle Put on a raffle, and sell raffle tickets round your work and donate the proceeds to Garston Animal Rescue. Can raise quite a bit if you manage to get some prizes that people really like, such as stuff from Lush, or anything that you think will be popular with your colleagues.
Ideas for kids at school
Count the sweets in the jar Guess the number of marbles or sweets in a jar – just fill it up and take it round the class, and everyone can have a go for a £1 donation.
Non-uniform day A non-uniform day – dress like a dog or a cat, or your favourite singer, or all dress up in the one colour for the day, or a character from your favourite book maybe – and everyone has to pay £1 to your teacher to take part and this would go to Garston Animal Rescue. Join in the fun! Even ask your teacher what they’re going to dress as!
A talent show – get your teacher to help with this – a show with children putting on something – could last from 5 minutes to half an hour so make sure that there’s enough time for everyone. You could sing, dance, read from your favourite book – absolutely anything that you like! And your teacher would invite parents and other teachers to watch, in return for a donation.
Cake sale: take in some cakes and sell for an agreed donation from classmates and teachers for a piece of cake!
Plus ... absolutely anything you can think of to raise much-needed funds to help us care for our animals! THANK YOU – WE REALLY APPRECIATE WHATEVER HELP YOU CAN OFFER.
Read more about us at www.garstonanimalrescue.com
Thank you for reading this.
