Swadlincote's Animal Crisis Team say they have received abusive phone calls after people were unable to adopt a dog.

Last week, the team issued an appeal for someone to provide a home for Coco, a German Shepherd.

But they were overwhelmed with calls - with 700 people ringing about the dog.

And the team say this resulted in some 'very rude' responses when callers were told of the demand to give Coco a home.

They also say calls blocked the line to Stan's Pals pet shop in Midland Road.

A message on the team's Facebook page reads: "Yesterday we were totally swamped with applications for Coco - over 400 people contacted us before 9am.

"Our organisation is run by volunteers and we found this very difficult to cope with.

"In total we had almost 700 applications for her. The phone line, which is not our line, it is the business line for Stan's Pals, was blocked all day with constant phone calls.

"We have 100s of messages to respond to - far more than we will be able to reply to. The answer phone messages were being left all night into the early hours.

"In one way this is great as we know when we work through these we will find a good home for Coco.

"In another way it is not so good as we are now having some people being very rude to the team because they have not had the response they require.

"We know you may be disappointed because you wanted to adopt her but please do not be mean to the people who give up their spare time day after day to help in cases like this."