Devil’s Bridge Rum have launched a new initiative to help rescue and rehome dogs in Wales.

The rum brand have teamed up with Animal Rescue Cymru to help abandoned, condemned or homeless dogs find new homes – and take care of them until that happens.

The premium drinks brand was inspired by the story of the Devil’s Bridge, where a woman tricked the devil with the help of her heroic dog – so we want to help the heroes who save dogs in real life.

Yvonne Hazell of Animal Rescue Cymru said: “Covid has hit us quite hard, as our shop is closed, no fundraising events for a year now and the adoptions have dropped off dramatically.

“The Devil’s Bridge Rum partnership was very appealing and will be a huge help to us, especially as they are a local company.

“I think our dream for the charity would be to rehome more animals to suitable homes and to rid the world of puppy farms, having seen so many damaged dogs come into our rescue from these terrible people.

“So the wider the coverage and support our rescue gets, the better."

DBR co-founder Gregor Shaw, pictured with his beloved dachshund Pickles, said: “Some of the stories you hear about mistreated or abandoned dogs are simply heart-breaking.

“Our brand is built around the notion of this beautiful, cheeky, clever little dog tricking the devil for his owner – and any dog owner knows that is exactly what your pet would do for you.

“We want to help real dogs in the real world. We wanted to do this locally by partnering with a small organisation who would really benefit from our help. The big charities are great but our support would be a drop in the ocean to them – lots of people donate to them already.

“With Animal Rescue Cymru we feel we can genuinely make a difference to the amazing people who run the charity, and of course to the dogs themselves, whether that’s paying for the roof over their heads, promoting the dogs on our site and getting people to try to adopt them or donate to the rescue. Whatever we can do to help.

“We know the support we are giving them makes a massive difference and will hopefully allow them to help even more dogs. That’s our goal.

“I’d like to grow this initiative in the coming years as our brand grows. We are starting out small, just like our company, coming out of the heart of Wales. Then as we grow we want to build on what we are doing with Animal Rescue Cymru, with them and with other rescues across Wales.

“And then beyond that – who knows where we can go with this. We want to have lots of real-life Devil’s Bridge Dogs, so people can see when they support our brand they’re also helping support real dogs and get them into proper homes.

“We are so excited about this and really hope we can make a huge difference to Yvonne and her team of amazing volunteers. I look at Pickles and just can’t bear the thought of anything happening to her, so I and the DBR team want to make sure we do all we can to help as many dogs as possible.”

"We have been working behind the scenes with the charity for a few months now and cementing a partnership we hope will last for years – and eventually grow across the UK.

"In fact the first dog we started working with Animal Rescue Cyrmu on, Kali – who starred in our Valentine’s Day animation – has already been rehomed. A win before we even properly get started!"

Devil’s Bridge Rum is sponsoring the full cost of a kennel for the charity and taking care of its occupant, so whichever dog is in that kennel becomes the Devil’s Bridge Dog.

Then when that pooch is rehomed, a new dog will be moved into their kennel and they will take care of them and ask supporters to help too, through donations or even applying to rehome our dog.

Yvonne of Animal Rescue Cymru said: “Our rescue was formed in 2010 and became a registered charity in 2011. We are run entirely by volunteers, and have no paid staff, receive no government funding and raise all the funds by adoption donations, fund raising events (shows etc) and through our small charity shop in Cardigan.

“Obviously both the events and shop are not operating at the moment due to Covid restrictions - so any sponsorship is most welcome.

“The charity doesn’t have its own premises so we use a local Boarding Kennels and Cattery, for which we pay a very much reduced daily rent for each dog and cat. The Kennel owners are a big part of our volunteer network - in fact we couldn’t run the rescue without them!

“And now our friends at Devil’s Bridge Rum are part of the team too.

“We only take animals from within Wales, but we rehome all over the UK.”