Has anyone in the Mill Road area of Cambridge lost a smallish mostly tabby un-neutered male cat? He's been taken to Companion Care Vets on Barnwell road after a traffic accident and found to have a microchip, but it's a foreign one (believed registered in the Netherlands) so they can't trace the owner.
If he might be your cat please phone Companion Care. Their number is 01223 243535
Saturday, October 15, 2011
Hallowe'en at 188 Mill Road
Many thanks to the donors who brought more vampire fiction, as well as lots of other books in beautiful condition, this afternoon - most appropriate to the season.
Our current volunteers are doing a wonderful job keeping the shop running with no paid staff, but we could still do with more people to achieve our target of 7-day opening. We pay rent whether we're open or not, so every extra day's cover is all profit for the animals.
188 is also very important to us as "feeder" for the larger shop in Burleigh street because many donors find it more convenient to leave items here instead of going into town.
If you might be interested in helping at any of the shops, please email info@rspca-cambridge.org.uk, or just drop in when we're open.
Friday, October 14, 2011
Do you recognise this cat?
She was found in Longstanton and reported to us as a sick-looking stray. We think she may be hyperthyroid, and she was very matted until the vets groomed her, but otherwise she seems to be old rather than ill. She's a bit wobbly on her back legs, but seems bright and happy.
She was wearing a new-looking collar, but unfortunately with no identification attached and she's not chipped. Someone obviously cared enough to buy her the collar fairly recently.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Priorities again
Events over the past few weeks once again demonstrate how difficult it is to prioritise in a straightforward way.
Nathan, an apparently young, fit cat who was recovering well, suddenly deteriorated and developed uncontrollable fits which didn't respond to medication.
Saffron, much older, but with someone willing to donate towards the cost of her care turned out not only to have nerve damage and early kidney disease which made it probable that she wouldn't survive an operation on her pelvic injuries, but also positive for FIV.
Conversely, some of the very old cats are now doing well on relatively cheap treatment by medication.
Looking at our situation in a more general way: someone looking at our expenditure with no extra information would almost certainly say we can run our rehoming program or our clinic but not both.
What that basic income and expenditure sheet doesn't show is that, if we closed the clinic, the rehoming program would almost immediately be overwhelmed by people wanting to give up animals because they couldn't care for them. If we closed our rehoming program, we would be closing the part of our activities which the majority of our donors want to support. Quite reasonably, a lot of them wonder why they should subsidise other people to keep pets they can't afford.
Essentially the rehoming program and the provision of veterinary help are complimentary to one another. We need to be able to say to someone who either can't or won't pay anything for their animal's treatment that we will help the animal by providing treatment and rehoming but we won't provide free treatment with no contribution from the owner. We ALSO need to be able to say to owners who are meeting us half-way that we will help them to keep their animals.
And to to do all that there is no substitute for the long slog of fundraising. Please support our ten point plan to keep our clinic open.
Just five minutes completing a gift aid form if you donate items for sale means we will raise an extra 25p for every pound the items sell for.
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