The Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals is pleading with parents not to abandon pets that were bought as Christmas gifts.
It says many children disown pets at this time of the year after the novelty of receiving them as presents, wears off.
The Society says its own shelter provisions are already at maximum capacity.
Dr. Cyril Sullivan, CEO of the ISPCA, says orphaning a pet should be the last resort:
"It is a very, very, very last resort to approach the local animal shelter or homeless shelter and look for help to take the animal. That is the biggest difficulty for us in the New Year and we'd ask people to recognise that and please work as hard as they can to to avoid that for us".
