Furever Homes volunteer Loanna Messman said the organisation had been overwhelmed by the number of animals they had saved or re-homed in the past couple of months.
Since August, they had saved 33 dogs — not counting re-homes.
"I think this was triple on previous years.
"And a lot of it comes down to people that are going through marriage break-ups because of financial stress [and] accommodation issues.
"A lot of people are just unwell — and look, we’ve had so many people with terminal cancer."
Mostly, it was because people could not afford to keep the animal, she said.
She urged people to really think about the long-term responsibilities of owning an animal.
Ms Messman believed many people were being impulsive with online ads and adopting a pet but months later their situation changed and it was putting a huge toll on the animals.
‘It’s not a five-minute thing.
"If they’re wanting to adopt a dog or a cat, they need to realise, like most people do, those animals are for life.
"People have got to stop going ‘there’s a cute kitten on Facebook’ and then ‘we’ve got to move house in five months and we can’t take it with us’.
"It’s not fair on the animal either, because at the end of the day, that animal gets stressed," Ms Messman said.
Furever Homes is a non-profit organisation and relies on volunteers and fundraising.
They are appealing for donations as each of the 33 animals recently rescued were vet-checked, registered, vaccinated and microchipped.
She said this cost $500-$700 for each animal, and they also provided food and other assistance where they could.
Ms Messman said they could not apply for funding because they did not have an official premises.
"Our small team of just four is dedicated to managing rescues and raising the funds we desperately need but it is a challenging journey."
She said fundraising efforts only went so far.
"We do fundraising, like barbecues and things like that to get funding in, but there’s only so many sausages you can cook.
"We need to rely on just people’s generosity — and thankfully people are [generous]."
The organisation was urging people to donate on their Givealittle page and get in touch if they could help with re-homing the animals.
"Every year it seems to snowball and we keep saying to each other, ‘we can’t do this any more’.
"What’s the point? It’s getting worse and worse and worse every year — but we can’t let those animals down."
