THE vogue for buying fashionable crossbreeds online is helping create an unexpected surge in stray and abandoned dogs in Scotland.

While England and Wales have seen a one per cent drop in a year, the number of the pets left alone north of the border has increased by almost 40 per cent, according to new figures.

According to the Dogs Trust charity there were 4,893 stray dogs in Scotland this year compared to 3,525 last year.

In the whole of the UK there were an estimated 110,675 strays handled by local authorities between April 2013 and March this year.

Sandra Lawton, of the Dogs Trust Rehoming Centre in Uddingston, Glasgow, said there were a number of reasons for the rise in Scotland.

"Owners may find that their rented accommodation does not allow dogs, and rather than go homeless themselves they will let their dog go in the hope that someone else will look after it," she said.

"We have a waiting list of six weeks because we are full to capacity, and many can't wait that long, or they may find they cannot afford vets' fees when their dog needs treatment or vaccinations."

However, she said the greatest increase in demand is coming from owners who have purchased fashionable cross-breed dogs online, often for a £2,000 price tag, then lose interest when they realise the expense and hard work of looking after them.

The crossbreeds include the schnoodle, a cross between a Schnauzer and a poodle, pitskys produced by crossing a pit-bull and a husky, bullpugs created by crossing a pug and an English bulldog, and the Labrador-poodle cross known as a Labradoodle.

A survey of 1,000 owners by the trust found that most do not know whose responsibility it is to care for stray and missing dogs.

When asked who they would contact, nearly half said they would get in touch with a family member or neighbour rather than calling the local council as they should.

Most respondents were also unaware that they had only seven days to recover a missing dog once it is in local authority care before ownership of their pet can be transferred or the pet can be put to sleep.

On average, those surveyed suggested a dog owner has 15 days to recover a missing dog - which could help account for the estimated 7,805 dogs unnecessarily destroyed this year.

The trust emphasised that although local authorities continue to encourage responsible dog ownership and do not want to destroy dogs, they struggle to cope with such numbers.

Around a fifth of owners said they had taken time off work because of a missing dog, either to search for it or because they were upset their pet was missing - and the average absence of an animal was four days.

The Dogs Trust is campaigning for compulsory microchipping for all dogs. Microchipping reunited more than 10,000 dogs with owners this year alone. At present it is not compulsory in Scotland, though a Scottish Government consultation process is under way.

Microchipping will become mandatory in Wales in 2015, and in England in 2016. Some 16,443 of the dogs taken in this year were already microchipped compared to 10,213 last year and 5,920 the year before that.

Clarissa Baldwin OBE, chief executive of the Dogs Trust, said: "Microchipping not only helps speed up the process of reuniting an owner with their dog, it is also significantly reducing the number of strays overall.

"We're calling on dog owners across the UK to come along to one of our free microchipping events."