It's been a great year for us here at the adoption centre. December 2012 saw the launch of the centre, the first of its kind and the society set off on a journey into the unknown. Being the first RSPCA adoption centre located within Pets at Home, we weren't sure on how successful the centre would be, whether it would be well received or even if any animals would be adopted from us. It took just five days to rehome our first four cats. A litter of black cats that had been at Rochdale RSPCA for 8 months - their entire lives. 

With the success of their first rehoming, the staff got to work on setting up events to help members of the public improve the welfare of their pets, thus helping animals in the local areas. One of our most popular events is the FREE rabbit & guinea pig drop-in session that takes place every Friday between 4-6pm. The event offers a free health check, free claw clipping and free pet care advice for rabbits and guinea pigs. So far we've seen 62 guinea pigs and 52 rabbits.

Another of our events has been microchipping. We offer £5 microchipping at pre-planned events to any member of the public, regardless of income. In 2013 we microchipped 160 animals; 67 cats, 73 dogs and 21 rabbits.

The size of the centre means we are limited to the amount of animals we can house at any one time. More often than not we only have 2-4 cats in at a time. Despite this, in 2013 we rehomed 74 cats, all of which were long stay cats that had been waiting for months in other branches across the region.

We have no facilities in the centre to permanently house dogs, but we do bring them out of the kennels for the day every Saturday and Sunday. The dogs come and sit with us on the sofa and meet potential adopters. In 2013 we rehomed 14 dogs.

When the centre was originally set up, we housed rabbits in one pod and cats in the other. Unfortunately rabbit adoptions weren't as popular as cat adoptions and we decided it would be more beneficial to use both pods to house cats. Despite this, we still rehomed 5 rabbits in the 3 opening months of the centre.

We hope that our success will continue through 2014 and that we can rehome even more neglected, abandoned animals. Thank you for your continued support - we can't do it without you!