THE WEBSITE of a Carmarthenshire animal rescue centre has crashed after appearing on This Morning.

Viewers were left heartbroken as Sylvia Van Atta founder of Many Tears Animal Rescue Centre spoke about the centre’s struggle to keep going during the pandemic.

Speaking to Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield today (Wednesday), Sylvia said the Cefneithin-based rescue centre had been hit “really hard” over the last 16 months.

In the last year, according to latest statistics, one in five new owners who had bought a puppy during the pandemic admit they hadn’t fully considered the long-term commitment that comes with having a dog, forcing people to hand their pets over to rehoming centres.

Sylvia said: I thought it would happen like this. We are trying to do our very best to keep going but it’s been a nightmare..

“Right at the beginning I thought we wouldn’t be able to keep going, we haven’t got the funds to keep going so I wrote a book about how we started the rescue.

“I thought it would be a good thing to fund it and also inspire others to believe to achieve,” she added.

Many Tears founder Sylvia also revealed that 15 of the dogs that they have been brought in over the last year ended up there because their owners had committed suicide. They would normally only see one such case every three years.

 

They also have a puppy that has had three different owners before it was 18 weeks old.

Viewers were left heartbroken with one saying on Twitter: "Seeing all those dogs&pups on #thismorning is so heartbreaking, hope they all get a good home they deserve, id take them all if I could."

Since the segment was shown on This Morning the Many Tears Animal Rescue Centre website has crashed with people looking to rehome one of their dogs.

A Twitter post said: “Our website has crashed but all the dogs who were featured on This Morning today will be available to apply for on manytearsrescue.org once the website is back up and running.”