Brighton-based animal charity Helping Paws has been overwhelmed with donations of toys and treats for Portuguese dogs since launching a recent appeal.

Shoeboxes stuffed with gifts and essentials will ensure that more than 130 animals will receive a present this Christmas in a country where their welfare is largely neglected.

Karen Lippitt, 50, founded the charity at the beginning of 2013 alongside a career selling Portuguese holiday properties, having become aware of just how differently dogs in particular are treated there.

She said: “I have always loved animals and I cannot bear man’s inhumanity to them, I just cannot bear the cruelty that I see.

“Diseased and damaged dogs tend to live out their days in shelters so we got to thinking wouldn’t it be great if they had a nice Christmas?”

Portugal’s council-run dog-pounds are known as kill-stations and are nothing like the UK’s RSPCA, often putting the animals down within a week of their arrival.

Miss Lippitt said: “They don’t feed them very much and just throw males in with females.

"They have dog-fights, pregnant females will have puppies and the dogs are starving so they will eat the puppies and it is really, truly horrendous.

“If we hear about it and we can do something then we will help. For me, that is what it is all about, to see these dogs that would otherwise be dead having a life and running free because of what we are doing”.

The charity is unregistered and relies solely on public donations and other fundraising activities to carry out its work.

Brighton RSPCA, situated on Braypool Lane in Patcham, allows Helping Paws to use its facilities to shelter the dogs it rescues so that they can be rehomed in the UK.

Bonnie and Clyde are two lucky canine recipients of this care, found beaten and with broken legs on a Portuguese building site.

Money has been raised for their expensive treatment through a raffle and various online auctions, with their vet very pleased with the pair’s progress.

Miss Lippitt believes that there is a direct correlation between the prevalence of Catholicism in Portugal and the lack of spayed and neutered animals, as this goes against the church’s stance on contraceptive measures.

Helping Paws actively promotes the importance of controlled breeding levels in cats and dogs both here and in other European countries, but most extensively in Portugal.

More information and ways of getting involved can be found at helpingpaws.co.uk/ or facebook.com/helpingpawsuk.