Dogs Trust

COVID-19 info: Our rehoming centres are not open for public browsing but you can still make an appointment to adopt or bring a dog to us. We’ve set up new processes which include social distancing measures to help keep staff and our visitors safe.

Find out more Advice for dog owners

Charity shops

UPDATE 29/06/2020: we’re pleased to reopen six of our charity shops, with new safety measures in place to keep our staff and supporters safe. It is great to be able to get our shops back up and running again, after so many of our fundraising activities have been impacted by the recent crisis.
The six locations shown below are now open for shopping and to accept donations however please note new hours below. The rest of our shops remain closed for the time being, we’ll update this page as soon as that changes.

Opening hours and safety measures

Our reopened shops will have reduced shopping times, and separate designated times for donations of pre-loved goods. Increased safety measures also mean we’ll need to sort and organise donations differently and allow time to quarantine new items. We are also asking that where possible, supporters use card or contactless when paying for goods in store (our shops in Colchester and Rayleigh can only accept card/contactless payment for the time being).

As our shops are quite compact in size, we will limit the number of people inside at one time. We will also have a reduced team running the shop to make sure we can maintain social distancing. Our volunteers won’t be back just yet, but we look forward to welcoming them back as soon as we can. More info on how we’re making our shops COVID-secure. Reopening these few shops will help us understand if now is the right time to reopen more of our charity shops.

While our teams and supporters adjust to these new measures, we are asking members of the public not to bring along their canine friends with them when visiting. This will only be a temporary measure and we look forward to being able to welcome dogs back into our shops as soon as possible.

Donations

We can’t wait to accept your preloved goods to our reopened shops! So we can take donations safely, we ask that you only bring them during the shop’s designated donation times – details for your local shop can be found below. All donations will be quarantined for 72 hours before we make them available for sale.

Due to the space and quarantine restrictions in our shops, please keep hold of larger donations such as furniture, as well as donations for the dogs in our rehoming centres for the moment. We are also asking our supporters to hold onto any books, soft toys and children’s games for the moment too, as for the moment we can’t take them.

We’ll update this page as soon as we can accept these donations at our shops again, or if you’d like to be notified when your local shop is accepting these, email [email protected].