Volunteer drivers needed for our shops

We're looking for someone (or several someones) with a car who would be prepared to put in about an hour a week moving stock between 188 Mill Road and 61 Burleigh street. We need to do this because it's often more convenient for supporters to drop off their donations at Mill road and we then sort them there and transfer just the saleable clothes and ornaments.

We're also looking for volunteer drivers who would be prepared to help with house-clearances. This often produces some very good quality stock for the shops (among a lot that can only be sold for recycling) and is very popular because people wanting houses cleared are happy to see the contents going to support a charity rather than being thrown in a skip.

House clearances are done on an occasional basis and usually involve one or more drivers and some helpers working for about half a day.

We reimburse petrol costs.

If you might be interested in this, please email camshop@rspcabookshop.co.uk or phone 01223 212 644

Another elderly stray

It's hard to know what to do for the best when we get calls to pick up elderly "stray" cats. Callers naturally tend to assume that a thin, "poor" looking cat has got that way because he or she doesn't have a home or isn't being cared for. That's not necessarily true, and a very frail-looking animal may well have a devoted home only a few doors away and simply be a very old cat. On the other hand, if the cat really has got lost, and is very elderly their chances of survival are obviously much worse than for a young, fit animal, so we would normally ask the caller to make enquries locally, but agree to collect if no owner is found.

Once we have the cat it's difficult for vets to make an effective assessment without any knowledge of previous history and we'll need to pay for blood tests as a minimum to check kidney function and whether or not the cat is hyperthyroid. Some conditions are treatable and the cat might be able to be placed in a home and live for years; others (such as the last stages of kidney failure) are hopeless and it's not fair to put put the cat in kennels and hope for the best.

If the vet's opinion is that the cat is suffering and ought to be put to sleep then as a welfare organisation we really cannot disregard their advice (bear in mind that this will not usually be "an RSPCA vet" but a normal private vet who is treating people's pets every day).

Just yesterday one of the Soham vets took in a very poorly looking stray for us and this morning they phoned to say he had a bleeding cancerous mass in his mouth and was in pain. In those circumstances it really isn't acceptable to delay in case an owner makes contact. The same day they took in another injured cat for us and he died overnight, so with hindsight it would have saved money to be used for other animals and been better for him if he'd been put to sleep at once. Sometimes these decisions have tragic consequences.

Old strays are another reason why we need more foster homes where we can give a higher standard of TLC than will ever be possible in a cattery environment. These are cats who are unlikely to be rehomed, but are still enjoying life and only ask for warmth, food, a litter tray and a comfortable bed.

If you might be willing to consider fostering animals for the branch, please email rehoming@rspca-cambridge.org.uk

Stocking Fillers

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Whitehaven news report of Cumbria rescue

Pictures of the RSPCA water rescue team working in Cumbria in the Whitehaven News illustrate just how physical the work of the inspectors and animal welfare officers is.

Some people might think all of the rescue effort should be concentrated on helping human beings, but by providing trained people who know enough not to become casualties themselves they're making it less likely that pet owners will try to return to retrieve their animals and need to be rescued by the emergency services.

Not just books!

Our charity shop at 188 Mill Road also has pictures (antique and new), posters and music (CDs and vinyl).

More and more requests for help

The number of requests we're getting for emergency help with veterinary treatment is increasing in a worrying fashion. I've had five calls this weekend, each of them meaning £100 just to get the animal seen by an emergency vet for pain relief. This time last year two or three calls would have been a bad weekend, and it doesn't seem to be slackening off.

A bigger proportion of them now seem to be people who are registered with a private practice and have never needed help in the past, but haven't budgeted for the increased cost of out of hours treatment now that nearly all vets use a dedicated ER cover vet rather than just expecting their staff to get up and deal with emergencies. I've no doubt that it makes out of hours treatment safer if the vet's not single-handed and dizzy with fatigue. However— it's making pet insurance more and more essential and also more essential that owners investigate the small print and make sure their insurer will pay the vet direct if they aren't going to be in a position to pay by credit card and claim the cost back.

From our point of view it's making the cost of veterinary help a more and more concerning part of our outgoings and it's ever more urgent that we increase the income from our shops.

Christmas cards available now!

Delightful animal cards now available to buy at 188 Mill Road and 61 Burleigh Street in Cambridge.

All profits from the sale go to support out local animal welfare work.

Webshop newsletter

Sing-a-long for Christian Aid From December 11th to 13th people from all across the UK will be singing for Christian Aid. Join the campaign and help to raise a note or two for the world’s poor. Register now and you’ll be sent your FREE Sing-a-long Pack with everything you need to make your Big Christmas Sing a huge success. RSPCA Cambridge & District Branch will receive £1 for every pack generated via our webshop. By registering you'll raise £1 for RSPCA Cambridge & District Branch, you'll receive your FREE Sing-a-long Pack and you could be in with the chance of winning a pair of tickets to meet 3 times MOBO award winner Beverley Knight as she performs an exclusive set at the Natural History Museum. Click here to register. Every registration counts!

Visit www.buy.at/RSPCA.Cambridge for more great offers from over 150 top retailers.

Purchases made through www.buy.at/RSPCA.Cambridge are made according to the information and terms provided by the company making the sale to you. Further details on using the buy.at shop are provided on the site.

Foster Carers Needed

We're trying to recruit more people who would be prepared to look after animals for short periods in their own homes. These would usually be cats recuperating after traffic accidents so not yet ready to be put forward for adoption, but we sometimes also need short-term carers for dogs and for socialising puppies or kittens.

Ideally foster homes would be close to Cambridge because many of the cats need to go back to the University Vet School for re-checks on their injuries, but we would be grateful for help from anyone in the general South Cambridgeshire / Newmarket / Royston area.

We cover expenses such as cat litter, food and veterinary treatment and will provide suitable cages or pens for kittens or animals who need to be confined because of their injuries.

If you are fostering kittens or puppies someone needs to be at home for most of the day so they get enough exposure to humans for proper social development.

All homes are visited by someone from the branch before animals are placed there. This allows fosterers to ask any questions they may have and means we can get some idea of how experienced they are, which is particularly vital when we are placing adult dogs who need training in a domestic environment. It also means we can weed out anyone who is taking on more animals than they can cope with.

If you are interested in offering to help as a short term foster home, please email rehoming@rspca-cambridge.org.uk

Rags, but no bones

If you are a frugal person and wear your clothes until they fall to bits it's still worth stuffing them in a bin liner and bringing them to us because we can sell them on for recycling.

In a typical month, sales of rags bring in £200-£300, which is enough to pay for a dog or cat to have a broken leg pinned via our clinic, so is well worth the effort. Diverting worn out clothes from landfill to re-use also benefits the environment and helps to reduce council charges. It's helpful if bags of textiles that are definitely only good for this can be labelled as rags, so that our volunteers don't spend time sorting through them.

Old towels are useful as animal bedding and we can also sell them directly as cleaning wipes, so it's helpful if those can also go in a separate bag.

All of this is increasingly important to us as potential donors of cash start to feel the pinch. Every pound that we can earn by trading activities is new money that doesn't depend on people being able to spare their hard-earned cash in difficult times.

Please watch out for deer on dark evenings

Would your employer let you run a "donate, don't dump" day for us?

"Donate, Don't Dump" is a concept inspired by Mary Portas and basically depends on the theory that pretty well all of us have something stashed away which we are never going to use/wear, but which is in perfectly good condition or else is old enough to be a curio. Examples might be china ornaments that are just collecting dust; kindly-meant presents of clothes that are the wrong size/colour; boxed games no-one ever has time to play, and so on.

Individually you might feel none of them is worth making a special trip to donate to a charity shop, but if 20 or 30 people got together to pool their donations they might well have a collection of items that would raise over £100 when sold.

Of course, the group doesn't have to be based on a place of work: it could just as well be organised by a school; playgroup; book discussion group—anywhere that people get together.

We need to turn over roughly 100 items a day to meet our target of £500 daily takings at 61 Burleigh Street.

If you might be interested in organising a Donate Don't Dump Day, but would like to discuss it with someone first, email emporium61@rspca-cambridge.org.uk or phone 01223 312 802 (closed Mondays).

Outdoor homes for shy cats

Mr Grumpy, one of the feral cats we treated, neutered and released.

We nearly always have a need for homes for cats who have never lived indoors and wouldn't easily adjust to a domestic environment. They need to go to a location where there is shelter (such as a garden shed, outhouse or barn) and someone who will put down food and check that they are OK.

If you might be able to offer a home to a timid cat, please email rehoming@rspca-cambridge.org.uk

Support us by shopping via our webshop

Support RSPCA Cambridge & District Branch when you shop online this Christmas and we could win £1000! Beat the traffic, parking and queues and browse over 5 million products at over 150 retailers in our webshop. There’s a donation for RSPCA Cambridge & District Branch every time you make a purchase via our webshop and every purchase could help us to win £1000! If RSPCA Cambridge & District Branch generates more purchases than any other buy.at webshop over Christmas we will win £1000! Our most popular retailers include: Festive offers at Thorntons include 2 for £5 on lots of Christmas treats and gifts. Take advantage of this offer and help us to win £1000. Visit www.buy.at/RSPCA.Cambridge for more great offers from over 150 top retailers.
Purchases made through www.buy.at/RSPCA.Cambridge are made according to the information and terms provided by the company making the sale to you. Further details on using the buy.at shop are provided on the site.