Nine years ago, not long after I came to live on this island, I was asked if I would help at the Gozo SPCA. As an animal owner and lover and brought up in a society where giving of one's time is the accepted norm, I agreed. They needed all the help they could get and the animals did not mind that my Maltese was limited.

Over the years I have never ceased to be surprised how forgiving animals can be. They give their love to a human who uncaringly dumps them and yet they will be loving and caring all over again if only they are given the chance. I have two such animals in my own home that are proof of that.

Now I am forced to ask why? Not why I should go on helping the animals. The reasons for that have never altered. Why I should go on being expected to mop up the problems created by people, Maltese and Gozitan, some of whom patently do not care.

You call yourselves Christians but I was taught that that meant caring even for the least of God's creatures.

I went in the other evening to do my evening of feeding, cleaning and walking the dogs to find I was again faced with the problem of a dog abandoned in the bus station and no way that SPCA had the space to take the animal in.

We are already overfull of dogs in the centre. We have already served notice that we cannot take in any more and so what are we expected to do? Should we do somebody else's dirty work and put the animal to sleep? Why should I or any other helper have their heart broken as another set of soulful eyes cannot understand why we cannot just take it in and you walk away scot-free?

Before any glib answers are given about giving the SPCA more money or space, these are only a bandage on the surface of the sore. Badly needed but not the solution.

What has to be cured is the mindset of people who think that by dumping an animal they are solving their problem and that is an end to the matter.

How can anyone be so arrogant to think one has the right to expect someone else to tidy up one's errors and problems?

The sooner all animals are chipped and owners traceable to face their responsibilities the better.

The SPCA tries its best and I am fast wondering why. Overfull and with no space where to put other dogs, it was decided earlier this year that when we could not take a dog off the street, due to lack of space, we would treat and chip dogs in situ and feed them where they were so that at least they were not in need. One dog that we were doing this for in Victoria, and which turned up twice a day to be fed, I met one Monday morning shortly after someone had intentionally fed it poison. Taken immediately to the vet we were unable to save it and I held that poor animal as it tried valiantly to live and I could not find any way to justify the horror to the person who had found it in the old football pitch.

Can anyone tell me why I should carry on bothering?