A LOCKDOWN dog spent her fourth Christmas alone inside a kennel.

Polly the three-year-old Staffordshire Bull Terrier cross was born in March 2020 during the first lockdown and arrived at Dogs Trust Newbury later that year.

She has been with the charity since October 2020 and has spent four Christmases inside a kennel.

After finding no luck in Newbury, the Dogs Trust team transferred Polly to Ilfracombe to see if her search would be any more successful in a new location.

A Dogs Trust spokesman said: "She has had some initial expressions of interest but sadly, none have progressed to an adoption so far."

The charity explained why Polly has been hard to rehome.

"Because she was a lockdown pup, Polly missed out on a lot of experiences and so her social awareness can be lacking a bit at times," they explained.

"She has made lots of doggy friends at Ilfracombe but they have to get to know her gradually and she spends a lot of time with our Training Team in the night duty bungalow that we have on site, getting used to the sounds and smells of a home environment, so that she’s in the best possible position to make her next home her forever one.

"As Polly will need a really good, steady routine to help her settle when she first moves in with her new family, we decided the festive period, with all of the excitement and general craziness that it entails, wasn’t the right time for her to leave our care and so we took her profile off of the website temporarily. 

"Once things return to normal, she’ll be ready to resume her search and we’ll all be keeping our fingers crossed that 2024 is the year that our Polly will become a family’s pampered pooch!"