It is the best of times and the worst of times for SPCA staff.
Kitten season has arrived and more than 1000 bundles of mischief are expected to meow for their mothers at Napier RSPCA.
But no matter how much staff adore them and try to find new homes, many will beput down.
It's even more likely that older cats or gummies, as inspector and team leader Natalie Morgans affectionately refers to them, will be euthanised.
"People expect us to just take their animals and they get upset when we say no," she said.
"We never know when we will have to seize a number of animals, so we need the space."
But still the animals keep coming, often dumped anonymously outside the centre at night - dogs, puppies, kittens, and distressed gummies.
The dumping is frustrating for staff because it detracts from their core business - preventing cruelty.
In April this year the New Zealand SPCA started a new programme called Saving Lives.
The Saving Lives campaign aims to reduce euthanasia rates for animals in SPCA centres and help pet owners look after their animals so that they are less likely to discard them or surrender them to the SPCA.
"There is a limit to how long we will help people with their pets in their own home," Ms Morgans said. "Often they repay us in food and time, helping out at the centre."
Other aspects of Saving Lives included low-cost desexing programmes. In June and July the SPCA sells discounted desexing vouchers and a desexing caravan travels the county desexing animals for free to community services card holders.
Young, recuperating, traumatised or elderly animals are given to foster homes, but the homes must have no dogs or children under 7 years old.
However, it is people, not animals, Ms Morgans despairs over. When Hawke's Bay Today visited, the staff received a call from a family wanting to swap their cat for a kitten.
"I am so disappointed people don't look after their own animals."
