A year ago Happy Paws opened the doors to its first charity shop in San Gwann, the proceeds of which go towards animal welfare.

The shop has proved to be a great success under the management of Maike Beekman and all the volunteers. It now has a new manager, Margaret Micallef.

The voluntary organisation celebrated a year "in business" with a lunch at Porto del Sol in Xemxija to thank the volunteers and friends of the charity, who included Wendy Passmore and her daughter Mary, "great supporters of Happy Paws". A raffle during the lunch made Lm70.

Because Happy Paws gets so many donations and it is impossible to stock all the items in San Gwann, a second outlet was opened last October in Burmarrad called The Garage - because that's just what it is, one of the volunteers joked.

Vivien Camilleri-Palmer manages it. The items on sale are furniture and the bulkier items and surplus from the San Gwann shop.

Most of the proceeds go towards a neutering programme. So far Happy Paws have issued Lm2,986.59 worth of vouchers for the neutering of 399 female cats, 270 male cats and 56 dogs. Unfortunately, Lm365.49 of the amount had to be paid in VAT.

Happy Paws thanked the many people who have donated cat and dog food. A total of 6,500 tins were collected in various supermarkets between October 2004 and September this year. People shopping at Shopwise, Qormi gave 1,402 tins.

All food collected was distributed to several different animal organisations including the SPCA, AAA, Animal Rights Group, Island Sanctuary, Noah's Ark, Tomasina and several others that feed stray cats and dogs in numerous colonies around the island.