Dogs recovering from squalid shed

Patsy Holland is adopting a Yorkshire terrier called Billy

As many as 3,000 inquiries and offers of homes have been made to a charity which is caring for some of the 204 dogs found in a garden shed in April.

The starving Yorkshire terriers were crammed inside carrier boxes in the windowless 40ft (12m) shed in Hurstpierpoint, West Sussex.

The Celia Hammond Animal Trust has been looking after them at a clinic and its Greenacres Sanctuary in East Sussex.

The trust said the dogs were "becoming more sociable every day".

They were discovered on 15 April in squalid conditions following the death of their 73-year-old owner.

"We faced a major task in the first few days just cleaning the dogs," the trust said.

The conditions inside the shed were described as "horrific"

"We are amazed considering what they have been through that they are responding so quickly to human contact."

Some of the Yorkshire terriers have had puppies since their rescue and are now being cared for at the Greenacres Sanctuary in Brede, near Hastings.

The trust said re-homing offers had come in from across the world, but that it would only look further afield once all possibilities had been exhausted in its usual target areas of Sussex, Kent and London.

Patsy Holland, from Winchelsea in East Sussex, is adopting Billy as a companion for the Yorkshire terrier she already owns.

"He'll have a field and lovely walks and just be part of a family," she said.