Myxomatosis

Spring and Autumn are high-risk periods for myxomatosis in the UK. Rabbits who are not regularly vaccinated (most vets recommend vaccination at 6 monthly intervals) are at high risk of contracting the disease and dying. This is the case even if your rabbit does not normally go outside and you live in an urban area, because the virus is spread by biting insects, such as mosquitos and midges.

Breeding like... Rabbits!

Most of our intake of unwanted rabbits are fostered with the rabbit residence rescue who have suitable facilities to keep rabbits long-term with a good quality of life until they are adopted. They've just had an influx of 21 unwanted bunnies - mainly the result of people allowing a pair to breed, then not separating the babies so they all breed... until the result is a nightmare of over-crowding, fighting and stress.

If you are thinking of getting a pet rabbit please do not buy one from a pet shop. In fact don't get one rabbit - they are highly social animals who will not be happy alone. (The slightly sinister-sounding reference to "bonding" in Rabbit Residence's introduction refers to the process of pairing up two neutered rabbits so that they become good friends).

If you already have rabbits and urgently need to get them neutered to prevent further population growth and are on benefits: we can help with the cost. If you live within reasonable traveling distance of Cambridge, the most economical choice is to use our clinic (see the article on neutering below this one). If you cannot get to the clinic, or if you need to get your rabbits neutered immediately rather than going on a waiting list, then we can send a voucher for part of the cost of having the operation done at a private vet. You need to be resident within our branch area (see the map on the side-bar). To ask for a neutering voucher email neuter@rspca-cambridge.org.uk - giving your name, address to send the voucher and the name of the vet you want to use.

Low cost pet neutering

If you are on state benefits (including working tax credit and pension credit, but not child tax credit on its own) and live within our branch area, you are eligible to have your pets neutered via our animal clinic in Cambridge. This is not free, but is significantly cheaper than the cost a private vet would have to charge.

The Wednesday morning session (9 am - 10.30 am) is reserved for pre-neutering checks and vaccinations, so is the best time to bring your animal along to be booked onto the waiting list. Charges are £55 for a bitch, £40 for a dog, £35 for a female cat, £20 for a male cat. We can also neuter rabbits and ferrets at the same charge as for a cat. Payment must be made in advance, and your pet will be given a health check to see that they are fit enough to have the operation. Once this has been done, your pet will be added to the waiting list and called in when they reach the top of the list (currently this is a few weeks).

Dogs and cats should be at least 4 months old before they can be checked to go on the waiting list for neutering. If a bitch is in season or just finishing a season she can not be put on the waiting list, but should  come back for a vet check to be put on the list in about 2 months. 

Ideally bitches should be neutered 3 months after their last season.

Neutering will prevent the birth of unwanted offspring who may not find good homes and it also has important health benefits for your pet - particularly in the case of bitches and female ferrets and male cats. Another great benefit in the case of rabbits is that it enables a male and female to be kept together as a pair which will make them much happier and more contented.

Experimental Lost Cat Notification Form

There's now an experimental form to enable us to receive information about missing cats on our branch website at http://www.rspca-cambridge.org.uk/testlost.html

This is only useful for missing cats within our own branch area (see the sidebar), and I strongly recommend that you also contact other local animal welfare organisations and vets by telephone. The main aim is to give us a sensible list of missing animals instead of lots of scrappy notes on pieces of paper that get lost or are unavailable because they're in the wrong jacket pocket!

Kittens!

Having been inundated with adults throughout the summer we now have kittens as well. If you could spread the word we'd be grateful as the sooner we find homes the better whilst they're still young.

Details are as follows:

Lynx (silver tabby) and Tiger (black) - about 7 weeks old. Were quite nervous but now coming on well but could do with getting into a home for more socialisation ASAP.

Bubble, Squeak, Fleck and Speck - 3 black and whites and one black kitten - about 11 weeks - not sure of sexes of them. Very friendly and good with stefs children. Could be homed in pairs. (pics attached)

We also have 4 black/dark tortie kittens who are about 6 weeks are also at a cattery in Peterborough (because our local cattery was full).

If you would be interested in adopting any of them, please email rehoming@rspca-cambridge.org.uk

Two more cats

One with both hind legs broken, but a reasonable prognosis that they can be operated on with an implant screwed across the broken sections to hold them together (The implant is basically a titanium plate, not too different from the "mending plates" carpenters use to join pieces of wood). The other is more problematic because she has a ruptured diaphragm which will need surgical repair.

Many thanks to the nurses at Arbury Road vets, who brought her down to our clinic themselves when time was too short to organise a volunteer driver.

Hamster of the day

This is Hammy, who is a fairly young Syrian hamster. He does nip!

If you might be interested in adopting him, please email rosemary@rspca-cambridge.org.uk

July statistics

Just got the records for July collated. During the month, our branch:

Provided low-cost veterinary treatment for 205 dogs, 115 cats, 11 rabbits and 14 miscellaneous small animals.

Rehomed 4 dogs, 3 cats and 2 birds.

Microchipped 11 dogs and 10 cats

Neutered 13 dogs, 12 cats and a rabbit

Our total outgoings were £16,904 (this amount also covers wages for our three shop staff, rent for the charity shop in Newmarket and our annual audit fee). We raised £7,811, mostly from sales at the charity shops and clinic fees.

Protecting animals from suffering

Call last night from the daughter of an gentleman in great distress because his elderly jack russell was in great pain to the extent that he wasn't able to pick the dog up. These situations always seem to happen at weekends and, quite apart from the increased financial cost of getting out of hours treatment, very few vets are now able to make home visits. Sadly this is a reflection of the times we live in, and the potential liability of their employers if staff members are attacked or injured during a call-out. We were fortunate that Royston Veterinary Centre is one of the few local vets who still do call-outs in their area and that they don't use another veterinary practice for their out of hours cover.

We keep statistics of the numbers of animals which are put to sleep at branch expense and these are reported annually in the combined Annual Report of the society, together with the numbers of animals rehomed or given veterinary treatment. Euthanasia tends to be seen as a situation where the RSPCA has failed to help an animal and I believe we need to challenge this. It certainly is a failure of animal welfare if healthy animals who should have their lives ahead of them are put to sleep. We have not failed when we ensure that animals who have reached the end of their natural lives are released from suffering and indignity instead of dying in pain and fear.

Investments

The RSPCA has an ethical investment policy - basically that society funds shouldn't be invested in anything which causes harm to animals (as that would negate the point of having them, anyway). Putting this into practice isn't exactly as straightforward as it might seem, as I've been finding out.

If you have large amounts of money that you can tie up for several years, there's no problem getting a tailor-made investment package where your funds are invested in companies which fit whatever criteria you specify. For smaller amounts (where "small" means less than about £500,000) it's only really feasible to put your money into existing schemes, and in our case it appears that the only really viable choice is between building societies (you know the funds are invested in property) and the Co-operative Bank (they have a pre-existing list of sectors where they won't invest depositors' money). It's looking as though the Co-op is going to be the right "home" for the money we know we won't need to touch for at least a year.

Unfortunately this doen't completely solve our problems as the Co-op doesn't have many branches where our shops and volunteers can bank cash takings, so it wouldn't be practical to transfer our current account there. We probably also need to maintain some cash on short-term deposit at our current bank because we need to be able to transfer money quickly into the current account when necessary.

I sometimes get asked rather aggressively "what companies do you invest your funds in?" - with the implication that we're probably funding smoking beagles and cosmetics testing. It always sounds rather evasive to say "that's not how banking works", but I'm afraid that's the actual truth. We're not big enough or rich enough to be investing in individual share holdings.

Fleas!

Another two cats — and a first for one of our inspectors, who wound up so covered in fleas that she had to bin her outer clothes and spray herself with insecticide before heading home for a complete shower and change. I wonder if Frontline is licensed for use on humans? Goodness knows what state the poor cats must be in after being shut in with that number of blood-sucking parasites.

This is one health issue where completely feral (free-living) cats are actually better-off than very poorly-kept domestic ones, as they are able to keep down their parasite burden to some extent by changing their sleeping places so that fleas can't build up. When we choose to keep cats inside we take on the responsibility of flea control. There are various veterinary preparations which will kill fleas on the cat, but it's also important to clean the surroundings (and if necessary spray with an approved product).

Elderly Tabby/tortie?

Has anyone in the Cambridge area lost an elderly dark tabby/tortie cat? She was brought in just over a week ago suffering from severe dehydration as well as being very thin, so may have been living rough for some time. She seems to have had an infection at some point which has left her third eyelids permanently partially raised, but this may have happened after she got lost. She initially had to be put on a drip and we thought we were going to be forced to put her to sleep, but she's picked up after being rehydrated and put on a renal diet and she's now maintaining reasonable body condition without artificial fluids.

Fenella's story illustrates the problem of unidentifiable older cats. She's so friendly that she must have had a home at some time, but without a micro-chip it's unlikely that we can re-unite her with her original owners. While she's reasonably well we can ensure her a good quality of life with one of our fosterers, but with so many cats it's not possible to give older ones the same kind of nursing care they would be able to expect in a home of their own.

If you might be interested in fostering animals for our branch, please email rspcacambridge@aol.com with subject: fostering

Stocktake

The caesarian cat came through the operation, but the kittens didn't survive - she had a malformation of the uterus, so she's been spayed.

O'Malley's gone out to his new home (that's him in the picture).

Four abandoned kittens in - booked into the Peterborough kennels for the moment as the ones we normally use are still full-to-bursting.

If you might be interested in adopting a kitten, please email rehoming@rspca-cambridge.org.uk

Caesarian

Call from one of our local vets to say someone's brought in a stray cat who needs a caesarian. They're being very good about keeping the cost to us to an absolute minimum, but (assuming mum and babies all survive) it means yet another intake of cats into our already-stretched facilities. Fortunately we're still at least in a situation where there's no doubt about reasonably quickly finding homes for kittens - it's the adult cats who stick in kennels.

Have my doubts about whether the cat is a genuine stray - but even if this is a "story" to avoid paying for the operation at least someone cared enough about her welfare to get her to a vet.

Pet Insurance woes

Pet insurance is a life-saver, but owners can be lulled into a false sense of security if they don't make sure their policy is the right one for their financial circumstances. Many policies have an excess - a fixed amount of money which the animal's owner is expected to cover themselves - and will only pay out if the cost of treatment is more than the excess amount. It can be as much as eighty pounds - a sum which an owner on a really low income may not be able to lay their hands on in an emergency. Some policies only pay out once the owner has settled the vet's bill in full - again potentially something that an owner who doesn't have a credit card will find completely impossible.

Aggravatingly, this is just what's happened to a caller who's adopted a dog from a local rescue centre (not RSPCA) recently. The centre rehomes all its dogs with 30 day health insurance cover, and she'd delayed registering her dog at our clinic until after the bank holiday as a result.

Getting stung by jellyfish on an August bank holiday, will set you back £100+ at a private vet if you are a labrador. Unfortunately her policy has an excess of £80 which she doesn't have - and she doesn't have access to her savings because they are in a Post Office account.

Moral - always read the small print and never put off until tomorrow what you need to do today.

Running round in circles

Most of the people we deal with mean well, but they can create complicated situations. Phoned last night by an elderly lady who takes her dogs to our clinic. Her grandson's looking after his parent's home while they're away and taken in an unwanted kitten. This would have been fine, until kitty managed to get caught in a door - now has a leg swelling to twice its natural size, and, of course, being a bank holiday weekend, only the 24 hour emergency vet is open. At 7 weeks, the kitten's not old enough to have been registered at our clinic for their emergency cover.

Managed to get kitty into Vet24. They think his leg's probably broken, so they'll keep him on pain relief until Tuesday when we can transfer him to our clinic. If the leg is broken, we're looking at around £200 to get it pinned, even with our RSPCA discount, so I think the owner may have to sign the kitten over for rehoming. Sad, as he's a nice lad and very concerned about it.

Parvo yet again

Another puppy with parvovirus. Treated with fluids at the clinic on Thursday and Saturday and again this morning as an emergency.

Honey

Honey is a lovely, friendly girl, one of the eight cats we took in after their owners were evicted. Ideally she would like to be adopted together with one of her friends as she is very sociable.

If you might be interested in adopting Honey, please email rehoming@rspca-cambridge.org.uk

Today's dog - Ben

Ben is playful and energetic in spite of being thirteen years old and a little chubby. We think he's not a pure-bred golden retriever, although that's obviously a major part of his ancestry. He's very healthy considering his age, but has had some problems with irritation of his ears and may need regular ear-drops to keep this under control.

If you might be interested in adopting Ben, please email rehoming@rspca-cambridge.org.uk

Update on Emily

Emily's now had her stitches out and looks more normal except for a bald patch. She was originally found in Burwell.