Liverpool's PDSA team take on world's biggest virtual dog walk

22 September 2020

A devoted team of staff from our Huyton PDSA Pet Hospital are putting their best foot forward and taking on the World Big Dog Walk to raise vital funds for pets in need.

The team – including PDSA vets, vet nurses, veterinary care assistants and receptionists – are aiming to walk 874 miles in September, equivalent to walking from Land’s End to John O’Groats.

The coronavirus pandemic has had a huge financial impact on us at PDSA, seeing our income fall by around £3million a month. Despite this, sick and injured pets still need emergency veterinary treatment, which is why the Huyton vet team decided to take on the fundraising challenge for PDSA.

The virtual walk will see the team of 16 join other animal lovers and celebrities from across the UK as part of the World Big Dog Walk, a virtual event taking place throughout September. The ‘walkies’ challenge helps charities such as PDSA, who provide free and low-cost vet care to owners in financial need. Everyone’s walking contributions as part of the challenge, will hopefully, together clock up enough kilometres to cover the earth’s circumference (40,075km)!

Our Huyton team have already exceeded their £431 fundraising target (set because the Pet Hospital helped 431 pets every week in August 2020) and walked 440 miles, which has taken them to Anglesey, Yorkshire’s Three Peaks, the Lake District and many walks around Liverpool.

PDSA Vet Helen Allwood (37), who has worked at the Huyton PDSA for eight years, said: “Working as a vet on the frontline during the pandemic has been incredibly intense. We’ve seen a huge number of pets in need of emergency treatment and I’m proud of how the whole team have pulled together to ensure we can still be there for pets in need.​

My aims with the Big Dog Walk challenge was to do something inclusive that we could all be a part of but also to make it fun! And hopefully to raise awareness of what we do and the huge numbers of pets and owners that we are continuing to help every day.​

“Our fundraising target was £431 which is the number of pets we helped via phone consultations each week during August. We’ve already smashed this and I am so proud to be part of this amazing team and I know we will pull together to smash our target and raise lots of money.”​

Find out more and sign up to the World Big Dog Walk

In times of uncertainty and hardship, pets will still fall ill or be injured and need emergency, life-saving care.

PDSA relies on the kindness of hundreds of thousands of people who support the charity every year to help the pets of vulnerable people who have nowhere else to turn. PDSA doesn’t receive any government funding and is supported by the generosity of the pet-loving public who donate to make sure we can be there for a pet when they need us most.​