WE'RE supposed to be nation of animal lovers as well as a nation of shopkeepers, but you'd hardly know it.

Thousands of cases of cruelty are reported every year for starters.

Last week, a BBC programme exposed the appalling scale of suffering among pedigree dogs bred with genetic diseases.

And today a charity has published a survey claiming that almost 100,000 stray dogs were picked up by local authorities last year. The Dogs Trust estimates that nearly 7,000 of that number were destroyed because of ill health, aggression or because a home could not be found for them. The good news is that the overall figure is lower than the previous year, down some eight per cent.

But, as the chief executive of the charity says in her report, the numbers are still far too high and show that in many cases, pets are being treated as throwaway commodities. The charity has shown a neat sense of timing, releasing its findings a few days after Martin Clunes' two part television programme One Man and His Dogs. As the economic situation worsens - the Chancellor has already told us it will - animal welfare groups worry that more people will dump their pets to save money. There's already some evidence this is happening and next year's statistics will probably reflect that.

Anyone looking for a dog, or any domestic pet for that matter, should visit a rescue centre or consider rehoming a stray, before going for a retail rover' as the Dogs Trust put it. Meanwhile more pet owners need to accept their responsibilities. Keeping an animal is a privilege, not a right. Quite obviously, not enough people realise that.