00:00 [Music]
00:11 Hi there and welcome. Now, April is National Pet Month.
00:15 Not only are these weeks an opportunity to celebrate our furry and sometimes not so furry friends,
00:21 but it's also a time to promote and highlight the importance of responsible pet ownership.
00:26 Well, to mark the occasion, our teams across the country have been out and about discovering more
00:31 about your favourite pets. So, let's see how they got on and we'll start in Manchester.
00:36 [Music]
00:42 No one has had a pug cafe before in the UK, so it was a massive risk. But we love our dogs so much,
00:48 we took the risk and we thought, let's try it. Let's see if everyone loves pugs as much as we do.
00:52 A unique cafe for pet lovers has recently opened near Manchester city centre.
00:57 Cuppa Pug in Salford is a permanent cafe for fans of pugs to book in time to play with,
01:02 cuddle and learn about supporting the breed through charity partners.
01:05 There are pug themed smoothies, coffees, teas and cupcakes,
01:09 but of course the most important part is the pups themselves.
01:13 The resident pugs are owned by people who run the cafe and you can even bring your own to join in
01:18 the fun. The space is designed with pugs in mind to play, feel safe and enjoy their environment.
01:24 We took a look at the new cafe and met some of the adorable pugs.
01:28 Here we have Derek. You may have seen Derek's moor on the wall, which we recently had done as well.
01:33 He is a little bit of our mascot pug. He is a little bit naughty. He's a little bit loud,
01:36 but he's also absolutely adorable as well. Then we have Lola. Hi Lola. Hello. So Lola is an
01:43 absolute sweetheart. Lola loves sitting on people's laps. She loves to do tricks for treats as well,
01:49 and she's just absolutely adorable. Cuppa Pug has been open for two years now in London. It's
01:54 just opened in Manchester six weeks ago as well. It started because I have an absolute crazy
01:59 passion for pugs and that's mainly because I see them as a little bit of the underdog. You know,
02:02 they need a little bit more help. So I had four before I actually started the cafe myself,
02:08 but they're all rescues and I couldn't help a rescue story. So I needed a way of being able
02:12 to live vicariously through helping other people learn about pugs and rescue pugs as well.
02:17 National Pet Day is marked on the 11th of April each year, but pets are of course for life
02:33 and their power to enhance our lives can never be underestimated. You may well be more of a dog
02:38 or a cat person, but here's what happened when Geha Pandey met Grace Olsen, who is more of a
02:44 sheep person. This is Merlin the therapy sheep, and this is his owner, Grace Olsen, a therapist
02:50 and author. I met them and the rest of the flock in Eckhup to discover how they've been helping
02:54 people. What is a therapy sheep? So, well, here we have Merlin who is performing very well for
03:00 the camera. And what he does is he just allows people to cuddle him. That's the magic. So what
03:08 happens is people come here to my field. Often they're terminally ill, suffering from a lot of
03:14 fear because dying makes you obviously feel terrified. When they come here, it's a very
03:20 unusual experience for a sheep to want to be near you. As you can see, Merlin is very interactive.
03:25 And just by being with an unusual animal that just makes people start to feel happy. It makes
03:33 them laugh and that opens them up so that they can then start talking about their deeper issues.
03:40 They're just magical. I mean, people look at sheep and they just think, you know,
03:43 they're just animals that are in the distance there on a hill. But actually each one of them
03:50 has a distinct personality and they're very loving like dogs. I've been a therapist for about,
03:56 God, nearly 30 years doing massage and different talking therapies. Then I got my horses and then
04:01 I learned equine facilitated coaching. They mirror what the person is feeling. So you can read the
04:09 person by looking at the horse because a lot of people, they find it hard to talk. The horse will
04:13 tell you what they're not saying. Then I accidentally ended up with sheep and the sheep just decided to
04:19 just get involved with the therapy. And that's how sheep therapy happened. People have literally
04:23 left here smiling. People who have not smiled for years. And that is what's better than that.
04:32 After writing a novel about how horses healed her postnatal depression,
04:35 Grace has now penned Merlin's memoir in the style of a fable.
04:39 She hopes more people begin to appreciate how special horses and sheep are.
04:42 Sheep are amazing pets. They really are because they're so loving. They've brought out of me
04:49 a bigger amount of love than I thought I could ever feel. And they're just fun and they keep
04:57 your grass down. So we've had them at home mowing the lawn. They get rid of weeds. They're just
05:02 really useful as well as being lovely. And then they've got all this lovely wool so you can make
05:06 jumpers and things. I think they are the best pets ever. If you've got a big garden, there is in fact
05:13 a tiny breed of sheep. If anybody wants some pet sheep, it's a French breed called, I think it's
05:18 Oussan. So it's like really, really little. They stay as small as lambs. So if you've got a big
05:26 enough garden, you could have a flock of it and you'll never have to mow your lawn again. Brilliant.
05:32 Lovely. Sorry, that was, he just got me off guard. I thought he'd just stay still and then he hit me.
05:36 You're not giving me enough attention.
05:38 And now I'm going to be talking with Lorraine Thornton from North East Animal Charity Paws
05:48 for Thought about the effect the cost of living crisis has had on their organisation.
05:53 With April marking the start of National Pet Month, I'm taking a look at exactly why responsible pet
05:58 ownership is so important. It's been quite horrific. So in all honesty, it's been the
06:04 worst I've seen in the last 10 years. It's went back so far with the amount of abandonment,
06:10 people struggling financially, can't afford to feed their animals and the left with no choice
06:16 but to ask for help. Paws for Thought is a North East Animal Charity which has been running for
06:22 well over 10 years now. But the recent cost of living crisis and the aftermath of COVID pet
06:27 purchases has caused them an influx of abandoned pets, the like of which they've never witnessed
06:32 before. With pet food and vets bills becoming increasingly unaffordable, countless UK pet
06:38 owners have been driven to handing over their pets to charities. We are getting 10, 15 calls per day
06:45 for animals that they can't look after anymore. And there's loads of different reasons for that.
06:51 But it is quite sad. It's just the volume that's coming through the doors. And really this time
07:00 of year we should be enjoying a lull and getting things in order for the baby season to start.
07:05 And that hasn't really been the case.
07:08 The 1st of April mark the official beginning of National Pet Month, during which the aim is to
07:15 provide practical support for pet owners, sharing tips on how to meet animals' welfare needs,
07:20 while being responsibly in budget. Animal charities like Paws for Thought are keen to
07:25 stress the most important aspects of responsible pet ownership to consider before you even think
07:30 of bringing a new animal home. I think an informed decision on which pet to go for. So finding out
07:38 as much information. Most of the reasons that we get animals when it hasn't worked out and it
07:43 hasn't been successful is that we're unaware of the commitment. A number of organisations have
07:49 come up with ways of trying to help pet owners financially with vet bills and day-to-day expenses,
07:54 with some even providing incentives for vital procedures. Cats Protection League have actually
07:59 brought out a £10 incentive that you can take to certain vets and for £10 if you're struggling
08:06 financially that cat will be neutered and microchipped. The law comes in in June that all
08:13 cats and animals must be microchipped. Re-homing charities including the RSPCA, Cats Protection
08:21 and Dogs Trust have reported an increase in the number of people calling their helplines
08:25 and citing rising costs as a factor in the need to re-home their pets. At the same time,
08:30 many organisations are reporting a drop in the number of people coming forward to re-home pets,
08:35 meaning that charities like Paws for Thought are inundated. We're always available for any help
08:41 and advice and we're basically 24/7 here and we're really taking any wildlife. If it's not suitable
08:50 for us, just say if it was a fox cub, we would then find somewhere that was suitable for it so
08:57 we would act as an in-between place. So it was a lockdown project when I decided to
09:10 change a little bit and move from hospitality to another sort of hospitality that was including
09:16 dogs. I've done a lot of courses during the lockdown like behaviour, nutrition for dogs
09:23 and then I started like just a hobby let's say to build up this project and then I showed someone
09:32 and they were like well this sounds cool, do you want to do the business plan? So I've done the
09:38 business plan and in the meantime I just decided to do it. It was lockdown so it was always like
09:44 I was walking the dog to the park and there was nothing to do and I was checking the location,
09:50 I was like oh this is so beautiful next to the park, it was closed for a long time and so I just
09:57 hoped that it was becoming available as soon as possible and it did actually, exactly when I was
10:04 looking for the location. And you get to spend every day with dogs now basically, is that just
10:13 like? Yeah it's my life, sometimes it's not easy because the dogs are off the lead all the time so
10:22 you have to make sure that they don't pee, they don't poop, it's like they are like babies,
10:27 kids toddlers around and so let's say this sometimes can be very hectic, it's not always
10:35 smooth and but it's a good fun and dogs have like just the best energy and they're adorable and
10:42 they're always make you like smile even when it's very hard and you have to go through the day
10:48 and you're very tired, like me today. And then also because like it's a dog cafe but it's also
10:54 a wine bar as well. Yeah in the evening we do wine bar, we organize events like up to,
11:01 well we don't have a big space so we can do like up to 30-35 people and with live music,
11:09 we've got the garden so yeah the Tuesday and Wednesday we close at five like a normal cafe
11:17 and then Thursday to Saturday we close at nine and summertime obviously we're gonna use more
11:23 the garden that finally will be sunny at least a few days and what we're planning to do is like
11:33 doing barbecue on Sunday and just spend the afternoon together with the dogs. Everyone is
11:40 welcome as long as you love dogs because otherwise you'll get annoyed and we don't love people that
11:45 don't love dogs. We are very, we are very, we want only people that are dogs lover and obsessed
11:56 even better and pets in general obviously.
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