Animal Welfare Statistics for 2011

Just finished the analysis sheet for 2011 and the final totals for the Cambridge branch are:

Low cost veterinary treatments provided via our clinic:


Dogs: 2,826
Cats: 1,204
Rabbits: 107
Miscellaneous small animals: 53

Grand total: 4,190

Emergency first aid at private vets (for owned animals): 

Dogs: 38
Cats: 33

Microchipping:

Dogs: 143
Cats: 121

Animals rehomed: 

Dogs: 29
Cats: 75
Rabbits: 11
Miscellaneous small animals: 13

Grand total: 128

The number of rabbits seen at the clinic remains worryingly low considering the high availability of rabbits as pets. For the first time I began breaking down our vaccination statistics by species and it is concerning that very few rabbits seem to be vaccinated against myxomatosis. 

On the plus side, it's interesting that cats appear to have a relatively high vaccination rate - in many months nearly equal numbers of cats and dogs are vaccinated even though overall figures for attendance by dogs are more than double those of cats. Dogs appear to be microchipped more frequently than cats; possibly because chipping is viewed as a way of preventing theft rather than reuniting an injured animal with their family.

We rehomed slightly more animals than our intake during the year, enabling us to end 2011 with a slightly reduced current number of animals in care.

11 of the cats, 1 rabbit and two rats taken in had to be put to sleep on vets advice due to untreatable injuries or illness.

Cats update

The vets had a call this morning from a family whose newly spayed cat had gone missing in the area where our little injured cat was found. They drove over to view and fortunately she is their cat, so  we have a happy ending there.

No-one has enquired about the older boy yet, although the vets say he's so laid back and friendly he must have a family out there somewhere. They wired his jaw yesterday and the plan is to transfer him to a foster home tomorrow and see how he goes. He's not yet very willing to eat, which may be due to crush injuries to the delicate bones of his nasal passages impairing his sense of smell. The vets are going to give him an injectable appetite stimulant this evening and we hope he will then eat normally in the foster home. If he doesn't, we may have to bring him in to our clinic with a view to fitting him with a gastric tube so he can be fed that way.

He'll need a second operation in about six weeks to remove the wire from his jaw once it's healed.

We need to recruit more volunteer foster carers for recuperating animals. If you might be interested in this, please email rehoming@rspca-cambridge.org.uk

Update
Older boy's family have now turned up, so he'll be going home too.

Two injured cats taken in

These cats were taken in as the result of two separate road accidents. One is a middle-aged neutered male, who has a broken jaw, but we hope no more serious injuries, the other is a young female who has been recently spayed as a shaved area is still visible. She has a broken pelvis, but the vets think she will not need a repair operation although she will need at least six weeks confined to a cage to reduce stress on the damaged bone. If you think either of them may be your cat, please contact us or phone the emergency vets where they are being cared for on 0845 500 4247.

Gift Aid: Thank You Everyone!

Our Newmarket shop achieved a fantastic 40% gift-aided sales in December, meaning that we will be able to claim around £500 from HMRC. Total gift aided sales for all three shops were nearly £4,000 meaning that we are very close to achieving our initial target of raising an extra £1,000 income for the branch each month through gift aid.

Thank you to everyone who completed a form, and thank you to the staff and volunteers for putting in all the extra work involved in stickering and tagging sales items. It really is starting to pay off and help us towards our goal of maintaining as much of our animal welfare services as we possibly can.