PRACTICAL help and advice is being offered by the RSPCA in a bid to ease the suffering of rescue dogs in New York.

The society is liaising with its sister organisation in America, the ASPCA, in co-ordinating a massive operation to rescue and rehome animals left behind after buildings were evacuated or whose owners died in the collapse of the twin towers.

Mobile veterinary clinics have been set up to care for the hundreds of rescue dogs working in dangerous conditions in retrieving bodies from the rubble.

Animal welfare workers now face the additional task of trying to help dogs suffering from depression at not finding anyone alive.