Ms Mary Chundee and her associates, who run the Friends of Animals Rescue Centre outside Mullingar, Co Westmeath, work under constant threat and blackmail.
But it's not a normal kind of threat and blackmail. It is, according to Ms Chundee, the constant threats from pet-owners to shoot or kill their pets if she and her staff cannot take them.
That is why the centre has 41 dogs, two cats, a sheep and five goats at the cottage centre at Cullionbeg, about 21/2 miles from Mullingar.
"You have no idea what it does to us when someone arrives with an animal and tells us that unless we take it, the animal will be killed," she says.
"I think that is blackmail, and we feel we are working under constant threat," added the Dublin-born nurse, who has devoted her life to the rescue of animals.
The Friends of Animals Rescue Centre was set up by Ms Chundee and her Indian husband, Sonah, in April 1995, with the support of animal-lovers in the midlands.
"I had spent most of my adult life in England where I trained as a nurse and when I returned to Ireland I was horrified at the way animals were being treated.
"I went to work with the Society for the Protection of Animals but I found this unsatisfactory and I wanted to do more for the animals from a welfare rather than a control point of view," she explains.
"We purchased this cottage and an acre, and with the aid of a Community Employment Scheme opened up the refuge. Since then we have taken in and found homes for hundreds of animals."
Visitors to the refuge have included foxes, hares, owls, hedgehogs and pigeons, which the centre has nursed back to health, released into the wild or found suitable homes for.
With a growing reputation for a common-sense approach to animal welfare, the centre works with the Garda and ranger service, and it has been responsible for obtaining court convictions against people who were cruel to animals.
But now the centre is under a new kind of threat - financial. The Community Employment Scheme has been cut back, and the centre is operating on a financial knife edge.
"Most people do not realise how expensive medicines are. Dogs coming in here are vaccinated, wormed, washed and given a collar.
"It all costs a great deal of money. Were it not for the patience of the local vets, who frequently have to wait for their money, and the generosity of local butchers, who give us food at the right price, we could not continue," she adds.
Electricity, telephone and other running costs are very high and make it difficult to get by, and sometimes the task is "almost impossible".
"The neighbours are good, too. They have to put up with us. All the dogs wander freely around our centre and we take them for walks locally. They have a lot to put up with."
The centre concentrates on finding homes for abandoned and unwanted pets and has been very successful in the last few years. It now receives calls from all over the Republic.
"However, it is getting more difficult all the time, and costs keep rising, and we get no official help from anywhere."
She says she "almost despaired" before Christmas when funds were very low and she feared the centre would have to close.
However, the Chundees have decided to ease some of the financial burden by operating a kennel service, but would welcome financial support from the public. The centre, which is open seven days a week, can be contacted by telephone at (044) 42205