Cheltenham Animal Shelter is delighted to present local writer Pam Ayres as their new Patron alongside Jilly Cooper

I have been an animal lover for as long as I can remember. My first pet was a chocolate brown rabbit named Fluff and though I loved him dearly, I now see that through ignorance, I gave him a horrible life.  Someone told me that rabbits didn’t need water to drink, they obtained plenty of liquid from the green plants they ate. At seven years old I had no reason to disbelieve this drivel, so Fluff was never offered a drink. Not once in his life. He sat looking out of the window of his miserable hutch at the bottom of the garden with no variety, no company and nothing to look forward to at all.  

I thought of Fluff when I went to the Cheltenham Animal Shelter last week. There they had lots of rabbits, with roomy hutches, heaps of crunchy greenstuff to eat and smart outside runs where they could stretch in the sunshine and converse with other rabbits.  I don’t know what unfortunate events led to them to the animal shelter, but they and their neighbouring guinea pigs looked as though they couldn’t believe their luck.   

It’s a very kind place.  The cages and enclosures and clean and light; all the dogs and cats have comfy baskets and toys to play with, yet there is something infinitely sad about the lonely miaow of a cat in a cage, and a dog with it’s nose and front paws pressed up to a set of bars. It isn’t a home, only a place of transit, somewhere to wait and hope.  

Since my visit I have looked rather differently at the dogs I see out with their owners. Hurrying through the Abbey Grounds in Cirencester this afternoon, I saw a group of children throwing a ball for their dog, and all the parties were having a high old time.  In the background an elderly lady plodded along beside an equally elderly and plodding dog. At the end of the day, as I came home and was boisterously greeted by our four dogs and their sixteen muddy paws, I thought how fortunate they all were to have their own families, their own baskets and bones, their own special place in their own home.

I am very pleased to be a patron of the Cheltenham Animal Shelter, a place of safety and refuge for animals in need, where through the dedication of the staff and the kindness of all people who care about animals, they can be helped to find a fresh start and a loving home.  I look forward to it and hope I can be of help.

Pam Ayres February 2012