Woodlands Animal Sanctuary -

We would like to thank everyone for coming down to our open day today. Despite the bad weather to start, the afternoon was dry and the turnout was excellent! Thank you all for helping us raise an amazing £1280!!

Our next event will be Paws in the Park on 20th May, you can find out more by visiting our events page.

Well done to Edward for guessing the puppies name in the 'guess the puppy' competition, for anyone who is curious, the puppies name was Patch. 

Thanks again for your continued support

Our new residents lodge has been finished today!! Yeah!! We have waited a very long time to see the end result!! A massive thanks to all those who have donated things to go inside! Mog, Heidi, Biscuit, Cabury, Pitch and our new Fella Felix will be residing in there! They have lots of new beds and massive play centre! We will update you further when everyone has settled in!

We are starting to prepare for soft releasing our over wintered hedgehogs, if you would like to help and have a suitable garden that has escape routes and you are happy to put food out indefinitely please email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. with photo's attached and your contact details, look forward to hearing from you.

Diana Celine is running a photo competition for Woodlands Animal Sanctuary on Sunday 17th March at Woodlands Cat Hotel. For just £10 your pet will have a sitting with Diana, your favourite picture will be entered into the competition that will give you the chance to win some fantastic prizes. You will be invited into the studio in Southport to choose your picture and receive a print of it! All this for just £10 and you will be helping the sanctuary at the same time!! Please call Diana to book!! Spaces are booking up fast don't delay!!

Fantastic Result today, We won!!! We were luckly enough to be entered into the Yorkshire bank competition (southport branch) and we won £500! Many thanks to all who voted for us and to the Yorkshire bank for putting us in the competition!

Woodlands Animal Sanctuary has been involved in the rescue of a little dog who has now been named "William". On Sunday 24th February two dogs were found on the moss at Tarleton in Lancashire unfortunately it was too late for the second dog who had already passed away. One of William's back legs had been very badly broken. Luckilly for William one of the Woodlands Animal Sanctuary Volunteers was flagged down by the lady who had discovered the pair and they were taken to the vets immediately where William was able to receive treatment straight away. It became very clear that Williams back leg couldn’t be saved and he has to have an operation to remove his broken leg.

William a small cross black lhasa Apso is now on the mend and will be staying with foster parents from the shelter until he is well enough to go to a new home. We are desperately appealing for information to how the dogs got to the moss. We believe that the pair have been abandoned.

Woodlands don’t normally deal with dogs, but we have taken William under our wing as it was such a special case and so local to the shelter. We have been lucky enough to be supported by Gregson Lane Dog Training club in Houghton to help with veterinary fees towards Williams operation. We are very grateful to Rufford Veterinary Group for their fantastic care for William, without them William wouldn’t have made it through his ordeal.

Do you live in Southport or Formby ? 

If so you can help us raise some money for the Sanctuary by helping us in two "Charity of the Month" competitions we are taking part in this month.

The first one is being run by the Southport branch of the Yorkshire Bank - all you have to do is visit their London Street branch before February 23rd and fill in one of the blue voting slips for the competition located on the right hand wall of the shop as you walk in and pop it in the box by the slips . Depending on how many votes we get we could win between £200 and £500 of much needed funds for the Sanctuary.

The second competition is the regular monthly one at Waitrose , Formby. Shoppers get a green disk at the checkout which needs to be dropped in the Woodlands voting box on the way out of the store. Please ask you family and friends if they can help too. Thank you .

Woodlands Animal Sanctuary at Holmeswood is in desperate need of help to get through the winter. Woodlands cares for rescued Ponies, Sheep, Goats, Ducks, Chickens, Guinea Pigs, Rabbits, cats, Hedgehogs and ex cage birds. We have 129 permanent residents on site plus 31 cats for rehoming and 42 hedgehogs that will need over wintering.

We have never seen the rescue situation so bad, we are taking up to 30 calls a day to take unwanted cats, kittens and rabbits and hedgehogs still continue to come in as the weather changes so dramatically and they can’t cope without a proper food source.

As the recession hit, Woodlands has had an exceedingly tough time, donations in general are down and intake is up like never before. We had lots of big ideas this year about rebuilding the delapadated stables and the shelter block, but all our funds have gone on running costs, these include food, bedding, gas, electric, vet fees and general day to day costs. We are running on a shoe string budget at the moment, we don’t have large amounts of staff, we are run mainly by a small dedicated team of volunteers and a very small team of 4 part time members of staff. Our daily running costs are around £250 which equates to £1.24 per animal per day, which compared to other animal shelters that are a similar size who have running costs of over 10k a week, so that gives you an idea of how stringent we are with our cash! We need £22,000 to see us through to Easter next year and we need all the help we can get to raise it! If you can find it in your heart to help the animals at the sanctuary see the winter through please get in touch, donations can be made to Woodlands Animal Sanctuary, Sandy Lane, Holmeswood, L40 1UE or can be made via paypal .