2024 in figures

2024 was our 20th anniversary year and another incredible year for the service. Our team travelled 1000s of miles in all weathers battling storms, floods, hot weather and snow to transport dogs across all our Freedom regions.

The team placed more new dogs into foster homes than ever before totalling 422 new dogs fostered in addition to the 145 already in our care at the turn of the year.  This is a huge 27% increase on the number of new dogs fostered than the previous year.

The overall sizes of dogs fostered are shown below:

We also passed a milestone of 3000 dogs fostered since the service opened 20 years ago with a sharp increase in numbers coinciding with the larger coverage of the service across the UK in the last 7 years which can be viewed below.

In 2024, we were able to reunite 305 dogs with their owners supporting them to find freedom from domestic abuse. Some of these will have been dogs we placed in the previous year and we hope to reunite more of the dogs placed in 2024 this coming year.

Of course, none of this would be possible without working collaboratively with domestic abuse services around the country and without the generous support of our donors. Our team attended an average of 7 meetings per month with local services to share information and improve the way we work together to support survivors of domestic abuse. Donations to Dogs Trust made it possible to keep the service running from the cost of petrol, doggy essentials such as food, a cosy bed and toys, to vital veterinary treatment.

Lastly, our team of dedicated volunteer foster carers form the foundation of the Freedom service, providing a safe home environment and lots of love and care for the dogs they foster. Our team conducted 1492 home visits to foster carers last year keeping informed of each dogs’ progress, offering support to volunteers and providing all important updates to the dogs’ owners.

'Every day, thanks to the generous support of our donors and our incredible foster carers, families are enabled to escape abuse and are able to rebuild their lives. And that's amazing. I want to say a huge thank you to everyone involved in continuing to make Freedom possible as we head into a new year for the service.'

     - Laura, UK Freedom Manager