Chaos!

Phone call yesterday evening from someone concerned that a neighbourhood cat seemed to be unable to stand. She very helpfully offered to transport him to a vet herself, rather than wait until an RSPCA driver could get there. Then, about an hour later, there was another call, this time from the vet's surgery, to say they had the cat and also a stray kitten who'd been handed in.

Sadly the adult cat didn't survive, but the kitten improved over night although she's very snuffly still and anaemic because she had so many fleas feeding on her blood.

Then began what you might think was a straightforward process of moving her for further treatment. Being so small, kittens can improve or go downhill very fast. Yesterday evening, the vets were doubtful whether she'd survive the night, but by mid-morning she was perky enough not to be really in need of inpatient care. Because of the snuffles, there was the added complication that vets don't really want a potential source of cross-infection to other ill patients unless it's absolutely unavoidable.

We don't usually end up calling round our foster homes while an animal is actually in a volunteer's car wondering where to go, but I'm afraid our new volunteer driver had some anxious moments wondering whether he was stuck permanently in transit with a sniffling kitten.

Thank you VERY much to our domestic bird fosterer for stepping in at about 5 minutes notice to provide a safe place with no animals likely to be susceptible to cat germs, and thank you to our wonderful volunteer driver for coping with something we don't normally land on new volunteers!

It does show how essential our volunteers are to making it possible to save animals, and also the importance of having as many individual foster homes as possible to minimise the risks of cross-infection.

If you might be interested in fostering animals for the branch, please email rehoming@rspca-cambridge.org.uk or info@rspca-cambridge.org.uk

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.

Knackered...

On reception at the clinic all yesterday morning, with Patch, one of the cats I'm fostering fitted in at the end of the session. The abscess under her eye has healed up nicely, but unfortunately her skin condition is, if anything, worse than ever. She's now on steroids to try to clear up the inflammation and irritation and medicated baths to keep the skin clean and wash off allergens.

This morning I had an anxious call from on of our local "cat ladies", about a probable stray she's been feeding (shown in the picture). We're fairly certain that she's hyperthyroid and that someone has gone to the trouble of getting it diagnosed, because her throat has been shaved at the point where blood would be taken for the test. The major problem is that she doesn't seem to be going home at all, which is very bad news if she ought to be on medication for the condition. The vets were able to feel an enlarged thyroid, and she's got all the symptoms: extreme weight loss while eating ravenously, racing heart, thirst and excessive drinking.

Cycled over at 8 and collected her as the "least worst" option since if we take her in we do at least know for sure what's happening, while if we leave her where she is we've got no way of knowing whether or not she's returning home or getting any treatment at all. Hyperthyroidism is a common problem in elderly cats and is usually treatable with medication, but the longer a cat goes without treatment the greater the strain on her heart and kidneys.

To the charity shop at 11, but not a lot of customers due to the awful weather. This was compensated by lots of incoming donations of items to sell, including two enormous ones including loads of very good crockery, which should go well when the students return. The clothes donations included a bag of towels, which are very welcome with so many foster cats needing washable bedding.

We need to recruit more volunteers to help in the shops. If you are interested, please email camshop@rspca-cambridge.org.uk or newmarket@rspca-cambridge.org.uk (depending on your location).

Tuesday and Merlin

The veterinary hospital that provides our veterinary services needed to free up the cage being occupied by Tuesday (another cat with pelvic fractures), so I now have two cat pens in what I laughably call my spare bedroom. 

I think it's still possible that Tuesday's original owner may turn up as she was wearing a collar when found, and she's very friendly. The vets think her fractures will heal without surgery provided she's kept on strict cage rest for at least 6 weeks (re-do the x-ray after 4 weeks to check on progress).

Merlin is all black and has a broken foreleg which has been fitted with an external fixator to keep the broken bones aligned until the ends knit together. He's quite timid and hadn't been neutered when he was brought in (the vets did the op. at the same time as they set his leg), so had probably been living rough for some time.

I was a bit concerned that having the two pens close together would agitate both of them and risk them damaging themselves, but so far all is peaceful and the shocking sight of Tuesday getting food and fuss before him seems to be bringing Merlin out of his shell.

Fortunately some of our other holidaying fosterers are due back later this week, so it will be a bit easier to cope if we get any more incoming cats this weekend. However we could still use more foster homes: if you might be interested in this, or if you would like to adopt a cat or dog, please email rehoming@rspca-cambridge.org.uk

More and more cats!

More and more requests coming in for us to take unwanted cats, as well as incoming injured strays. If you might be interested in fostering for the branch, please email rehoming@rspca-cambridge.org.uk

Most of the animals we place in foster accommodation are cats recuperating from injuries, kittens or puppies who need to be in a domestic environment for correct social development, or dogs who we think would benefit from training and assessment under home conditions.

Most of the adult cats need cage rest in order to facilitate healing of various injuries, so this might be a suitable option for someone who would like to have cats but cannot give them the run of the house.

This pic. gives some idea of the kind of pen we use for cage-resting injured cats

If a cat is having cage rest on veterinary instructions it is very important that the fosterer can resist the temptation to let  him/her out, because running or jumping may prevent a broken bone from healing, or even mean that it has to be operated on a second time to re-set it.

Cats everywhere!

This year's been particularly bad for unwanted cats, partly because our funds are so low that we have to think very hard before taking any extra animals into our kennels and partly because it looks as though more owners are procrastinating about getting female kittens neutered until it's too late.

We need to recruit more foster carers so that we can avoid putting kittens into a cattery environment where they miss out on the important social learning they would get in a home environment. 

If you might be interested in fostering for us, please email rehoming@rspca-cambridge.org.uk 

We will cover expenses such as food, litter etc.