I couldn’t complete my Big Give Christmas Challenge 2024 tips without something for our four-legged friends: step up, Fetcher Dog.
As pawrent to rescue dog Layla, it felt right to recommend a charity that saves dogs. You can support them…or adopt for yourself!
It’s a sad truth that fundraising takes up about half of most charities’ income and resources. Anything they can do to make that easier means that more money goes to the causes they support. Matched funding like the Big Give makes a huge difference.

Fetcher Dog
Dog pounds everywhere have been overwhelmed with animals since the end of the pandemic. Lots of people got dogs during the lockdown, then decided they were too much trouble. The cost of living crisis has seen even more dogs turned out of their homes.
What’s bad in the UK is worse in Bosnia, an impoverished and war-torn country where dog catchers round up strays for kill shelters. There are few humane deaths: most dogs starve or die from exposure. The ones on the streets fare little better, facing cruelty from locals, starvation and disease.
Fetcher Dog brings dogs from Bosnia, nurses them back to health and finds them forever homes in the UK. They also house dogs from local shelters and brought in by police near their base in Hastingleigh, Kent. They’re always looking for more people to foster dogs, too, while they wait for someone to give them a forever home.

All of these dogs have to be fed, housed, spayed and vaccinated before they’re ready for adoption. Rescue dogs have rarely had a good life, so they need veterinary care, rehabilitation and socialisation before they can join a new family.
For the Big Give Christmas Challenge, a team of eight volunteers are taking turns to cycle the distance between Kent and Bosnia — about 150 miles each. They’re not actually cycling to Bosnia because it’s December, but fair play to them.
So if conservation and better politics weren’t your thing this week, maybe helping a rescued dog is the right choice for matching your donation in this year’s Big Give.