Louisa Snow started her Wood Green Animal Shelter in 1924, at a time when people were struggling with the aftermath of the First World War.

Many working-class families were unable to keep their pets and often abandoned them on the streets to face starvation.

November marks 100 years since the original shelter opened in Lordship Lane, and a century on, Louisa’s legacy lives on as the Woodgreen Pets Charity, which is appealing for people to share their memories and heart-warming stories of their pets.

The charity made the difficult decision to close the centre and another in Hertfordshire during the Covid pandemic in 2020, leaving its one remaining refuge near Cambridge.

But rescuing, rehabilitating and rehoming pets in need will always be a core of the charity’s work, its chief executive Rohan Putter says.

“The challenges people faced in 1924 are as relevant today,” she said. “The issues are the same, about pet behaviour, medical conditions or simply not being able to afford to keep them.

“But we’ve learned a lot over the past century and are much better equipped to meet the needs of pets and their people.”

A new focus is on “keeping pets in loving homes” through the charity’s prevention and early intervention work. It now helps three times as many families, rather than simply rehoming unwanted animals.

The story that began in 1924 was the distress felt by animal lovers Louisa Snow and Dr Philip Peabody by the sheer number of pets left roaming the streets.

So they opened the Wood Green Animal Shelter, converting a house in Lordship Lane.

Both died in 1934, leaving the charity in chaos, with debts piling up and facing closure — until animal lover Dr Margaret Young stepped in. She changed the aims of the charity to rehoming as well as opening a clinic to treat sick and injured animals.

But then came a bigger threat to the organisation in 1939 with the outbreak of the Second World War. The centre had to be used as a temporary ‘safe haven’ for pets when their owners took shelter in Underground stations during air raids in the London Blitz.

The numbers of abandoned pets surged. The shelter became a centre for lost animals or for pets waiting to be reunited with their bombed-out families.

Dr Young managed to keep the doors open throughout the war and expanded in the post-war years to open the Heydon centre for strays and unwanted animals near Royston in Hertfordshire in 1953.

The charity bought an old farm in Cambridgeshire in 1987 where thousands of dogs, cats and small pets are cared for.

Dr Young, who died in 1993 aged 98, left an incredible legacy.

Her charity hit the spotlight in 2019 when it opened its doors to Channel 4 as home to The Dog House TV series showing its work to millions around the world.

But the pandemic in 2020 meant the charity having to close its Wood Green and Heydon centres and adapting instead to help isolated families during the ‘lockdown’ crisis.

The charity rose again in 2022 when Woodgreen opened its state-of-the-art Snowden cat care centre in Norfolk.

Pet lovers can email their stories to 100years@woodgreen.org.uk