RSPCA Week 2009 27th April to 3rd May

We need as many collectors as possible to maximise our fundraising from this opportunity kindly provided by Tesco. We have permission to collect during the week outside all the main Tesco stores in our area (Bar Hill, Ely, Newmarket, Fulbourn, Milton, Cambridge and Royston). As in previous years, the Royston collection will be used to help fund rabbit fostering at the Rabbit Residence.

If you could help, even for just a few hours, please email secretary@rspcacambridge.org.uk or rabbit_residence@hotmail.com (Royston only), or leave your name at the Newmarket or Cambridge charity shop.  Tins, badges etc. will be available closer to the actual date.

Still time to register for a place on the home-visitor's training day

Val from RSPCA Regional Headquarters will be carrying out the training which gives a really helpful overview of the homevisiting procedure. Janine will add to this where she can to show how the info is specifically put into practice in our region.

Homevisits we carry out are for our own branch animals (kept in a boarding  facility or foster homes) and also for other RSPCA branches or Headquarters  centres where people within our branch territory have found an animal they want  from further afield.

Our branch has drawn up checklists of the information we aim to obtain on  our homevisits. These used to be filled in & given to the homing co-ordinator. Nowadays, we don't tend to bother as it's quicker to give the results by phone or email. However, they do provide a useful reminder list and some visitors like to fill them in to keep for their own records.  

Ideally a follow up visit should be done a few weeks after the animal is adopted (usually by the same person that does the pre-adoption visit). So the forms provide a useful aid to refresh your mind on the details of the home before the follow up.

In addition to the training day, we try to take new homevisitors on a few visits with us (usually 2 cat and 2 dog ones) — before they go on visits alone. Although this is ideal, we always have a big problem, being such busy people and spread out over a large region, liasing with each other and the homeowner to organise these very quickly. Thus there tends to be a long delay getting our valuable new volunteers up and running. We would really appreciate any ideas on how this can be improved. Maybe not everyone needs to do four  visits with us. 

If you would like to book a place on the training day (Sunday 1st March, at Cherry Hinton Village Centre, Colville Road, Cherry Hinton), please email rehoming@rspca-cambridge.org.uk

Trapping and neutering feral cats

I noticed that the RSPCA policy on feral cats doesn't appear in searches because it's in a PDF document, so maybe it would be of interest to post it here.
The policy says:

"The RSPCA recommends that, where the welfare of feral cats is ensured and their presence is accepted by the owners of the site, the animals should be humanely trapped whereafter veterinary advice should be sought regarding their health status and attempts should be made to rehome very young kittens or other cats which are not totally feral. Euthanasia should be carried out on those cats which in the opinion of the veterinary surgeon are seriously ill or which are injured to the extent that returning to the site would result in continuing suffering and the remaining cats should be neutered. While under anaesthetic for such neutering, the left ear of the cat should be "tipped" to enable the cat to be easily recognised as having been neutered and the neutered and identified cats should be returned to the site and any further suitable advice given.

The treatment against fleas and round and tape worms of all cats selected for rehoming or for neutering as above is considered necessary.
"Tipping" means the removal of 6 mm, by a straight cut, of the tip of the ear.

The RSPCA recommends that, where the welfare of feral cats cannot be ensured or their presence is not accepted by the owners of the site, the contact should be told of the RSPCA policy given above and be given the opportunity to reconsider. If this fails to resolve the problem, or where the presence of feral cats cannot be permitted because of legal reasons, the RSPCA recommends that all cats are humanely trapped, treated and neutered, then rehomed or re-sited wherever possible, or humanely euthanased.

The RSPCA cannot guarantee that animals trapped by pest control firms will be destroyed in accordance with methods approved by the RSPCA."

We need more volunteers who would be willing to help with trapping and neutering cats. You would need to have the use of a car and to be fairly physically fit as the traps are quite large. If you might be interested in helping, please email rehoming@rspca-cambridge.org.uk
We don't get huge numbers of requests to trap and release feral cats, more a recurring trickle, but it is quite time-consuming, because several journeys are usually needed for each cat trapped.

Cats Protection will also help with neutering feral cats if they can. Click here to see their policy.

Rabbits Campaign

Make Mine Chocolate!™ now have posters to download. Please support them by printing out a poster and displaying it in the run-up to Easter to discourage the giving of rabbits as pets.

If anyone thinks their claim that thousands of rabbits die from neglect each year is an exaggeration, remember:

• Pet rabbits die because their owners don't know they need to be vaccinated. Every year our group euthanases dying rabbits whose owners didn't vaccinate against myxomatosis in order to save them further suffering. Multiply that by the number of RSPCA branches in this country and the result is over a thousand from that cause alone.
• Pet rabbits die because their owners don't know how to feed them correctly. Rabbits must have a diet predominantly based on large quantities of grass (not lawn-clippings!), hay or dried grass. Without correct feeding they are liable to painful tooth and gut problems.
• Pet rabbits die because their owners don't know to treat them against parasites. Regular vet visits are an essential.
• Pet rabbits die because they are kept in restricted conditions where they cannot exercise.

Rehoming Gallery

Just to flag up that we've now switched our rehoming pictures entirely over to the blogger format, which looks nicer and is probably easier for most people to read. You should be able to use the labels on the right to select particular classes of animals to view—for example clicking the "cats" label will show just cats available for adoption. We're still experimenting with tags, so any comments on what you find most helpful would be appreciated.

On BBC 1 TODAY — Thursday

Puppy Farming (Follow link to view the program on the BBC iPlayer)

19 Feb 2009 20:00 on BBC One (except Scotland)

25 Feb 2009 19:30 on BBC One (Scotland only)

Matt Allwright and Dan Penteado are hunting and confronting more rogues. They investigate pet shops and dog breeders who sell sick puppies. The Rogue Traders team go undercover to buy three puppies from establishments which have been reported to the RSPCA or trading standards. One of the puppies cost 350 pounds and was bought as a pedigree King Charles spaniel. But within a few days it falls ill with Parvo virus, a severe intestinal infection, and has to be put down.
Matt and the team reveal that in many cases, the paperwork is inadequate to prove a puppy's pedigree, or that it has been properly vaccinated. One of the dogs purchased by the Rogue Traders team had a docked tail, a procedure which was made illegal in England, Scotland and Wales in 2007.
When Matt confronts one puppy farm, the breeder attempts to hold the team captive. It takes a visit by the police to get them released.

Online puppy scam

Not in fact an animal welfare problem (these are fictitious pups), but worth flagging up because the scammers seem to be targeting legitimate animal welfare organisations and trying to get them to advertise the puppies as pets needing good homes. Anyone who responds to the adverts is asked to send money in advance to pay for transport expenses (which is how the scammers make their money). Being featured on a trusted organisation's website is a way to catch people who know enough to be suspicious of unsolicited emails or adverts on obviously commercial sites.

Nigerian pet scam

How it works: Scammers either run online classified ads or create breeder Web sites offering purebred puppies -- typically English bulldogs or Yorkshire terriers -- either free or at a discounted price.

The story can vary as to why the animal is free or discounted -- the current owner is a missionary who needs to find the puppy a new home due to the terrible weather in its current location; the animal was rescued from a natural disaster and needs a good home, etc.

The scammer will then ask interested buyers to pay for the dog's shipment, down payment, inoculations and any number of other miscellaneous fees. The victims wire money for the dogs but generally only get excuses for the delay. Instead, they're repeatedly asked for more money to cover additional "fees" invented by the scammer.

Never buy a puppy over the Internet "sight unseen". A reputable breeder will want to meet you in person to check that you are a suitable person to care for their precious puppy.

Still time to register for a place on the home-visitor's training day

If you are interested in training as a branch home-visitor, there are still some places available for the training day on Sunday 1st March. Please email rehoming@rspca-cambridge.org.uk if you would like to come.

Missing dog

Jacob's owners have asked us to publicise him on our website:

HAVE YOU SEEN JACOB ?
Orange & White Bracco Italiano 3 Year Old Male Missing from CB11 Area

Missing while on a walk in the Littlebury Green, Saffron Walden, Essex area

on Wednesday 21st January 2009

Jacob is MICROCHIPPED BUT IS NO LONGER WEARING HIS COLLAR & TAGS
PLEASE CHECK OUTBUILDINGS, SHEDS, BARNS & GARAGES
PLEASE LOOK OUT FOR HIM IN YOUR AREA
SUBSTANTIAL REWARD FOR JACOB’S SAFE RETURN

07828 671550

Buying a puppy

Owners who genuinely can't afford a vet's fees

The vetnurse has a post about a dog who was probably dumped because the owner didn't take him to a vet in time and then got frightened to take him because by that time his tumour looked so dreadful (warning - graphic photos). 

There is help out there BUT:

• You need to be realistic that charities probably won't be able to fund very expensive treatment and euthanasia to prevent more suffering may be the only option.
• It may be quite difficult to locate a source of help — particularly for someone who is elderly or confused.

The PDSA (People's Dispensary for Sick Animals) operates in all of the UK and offers long-term help for owners on housing benefit or council tax benefit. There is quite a complicated registration procedure and it's designed to allow pet owners who know they would have problems paying for treatment to register for help before something happens. The PDSA uses a mix of its own clinics and help via private vets. They can be contacted by phoning 0800 731 2502.

The Blue Cross accepts a wider range of state benefits (or proof of very low income) and most of its help is provided via private vets, although it also has some clinics of its own in Grimsby and London.  The Blue Cross can be contacted by phoning 0300 123 9933.

The RSPCA accepts  means tested state benefits as proof of eligibility. It's more geared towards dealing with sudden emergency situations than the other two, although it's possible to register pets for long-term help where a clinic or hospital exists. Where help is provided at private vets it's generally expected that this will be a one-off to resolve an immediate welfare problem. All RSPCA branches are expected to provide at least the cost of a standard veterinary consult fee and either pain relief or euthanasia in an emergency situation where an owner is on benefits/pension as part of their Minimum Animal Welfare Standards. All of England and Wales is covered, but not Scotland or Ulster.

If your local RSPCA has a clinic or animal hospital this will be listed in Yellow Pages under "Animal Welfare". Unfortunately if the branch does not have a clinic and relies on providing help via private vets, it may not be easy to contact the person who is responsible for running the assistance scheme. They may have a number listed in Yellow Pages, but generally the best way to find the current number is to contact the National Control Centre on 0300 1234 999 and follow the voice menu prompts. This may defeat an elderly or confused person.

Most vets will be in day to day contact with welfare charities, and they will not mind being asked for advice on getting help, although they won't be happy to be expected to give a discount on their services — they have bills to pay at the end of the day too. If they do offer a discount or allow payment in instalments it is important that they are thanked for it. 

Thank You!

Many thanks to the kind person who donated an upright piano for sale at our charity shop in Cambridge. It sold for £500 last week — enough to fund all our animal welfare services locally for two days.

Yet another collar wound

Another cat with a collar injury. Her owner contacted us wanting her rehomed because she'd returned after being missing for some time and in the meanwhile the owner had got a dog and no longer had space for a cat as well. I suspect this wasn't the whole story as she'd taken the cat for first aid at one of the Huntingdon vets, and they would have warned her the wound would need stitching under anaesthetic.

Huntingdon is outside our branch area so we referred her to Block Fen who have their own on-site vet for animals admitted for rehoming.

Be A Zoo Vet (Using Maths)

One of a series of books aimed at children in the age range 8-12, offering examples of the practical application of maths skills in real-life scenarios. 

The text has been checked for factual accuracy by a practising vet, and the examples are calculations which might actually be used by someone caring for animals (for example calculating correct worming doses using the animal's weight): they are not re-hashes of the old "how long will it take to fill a bath" problems.

I might have preferred a scenario based around pet or farm animals, but I think that's me being picky. The text includes some strong welfare messages (for example the danger of feeding unsuitable items) and it would help to give an "animal-mad" child the motivation to learn maths as a pathway to careers with animals. 

Cat population part two

The Southampton cat population study led to a major rethink about tackling the problem of the number of cats coming into rescue. 

I can remember the first wave of projects, about seven years ago, when branches tried to adopt a scientific approach, based on the study's figures for the percentage of neutered cats needed for the population to be in balance. Ideally, this involved selecting areas which experience had shown were a frequent source of incoming cats; surveying local cat owners to find the percentage of un-neutered females and following up with a campaign to offer vouchers for spay/neuter in areas where the percentage of un-neutered cats was higher than needed to produce just enough kittens to replace cats dying from natural causes. 

This sounded wonderful, but in practice was so labour-intensive that hardly anyone actually managed to follow the whole protocol.

The second wave was less scientifically ambitious and just involved the branch identifying areas tending to generate incoming cats and targeting offers of neutering vouchers to those areas. 

The third wave evolved into the current series of Community Animal Action Weeks, which have been so successful and useful on many fronts, not just cat numbers, that they are probably the final, optimised version. 

The aim of Community Animal Action Week is to help pet owners by providing free animal care advice and discounted microchipping. Neutering vouchers will also be provided.

Local RSPCA officers will team up with dog wardens and police community support officers to visit as many homes in the selected areas as possible. The service is free, but anyone receiving help is welcome to make a small donation towards the charity's costs.

An additional bonus of the Animal Action Weeks is the way they give Inspectors, ACOs and volunteers a unique chance to work together as a team on something positive, rather than continual "fire-fighting" and to get away from the "us and them" view of the general public. Several people I know who participated commented that, even on supposedly "sink" estates, the vast majority of pet owners want to do the right thing and do look after their animals.

Bunnies everywhere!

The Eastern Region has just issued an appeal to help rehome another 56 rabbits! 

Once again, this illustrates what a major problem there is with impulse purchase of cute, furry babies who grow into adults who need at least as much exercise and space as a cat and have the potential to produce exponential numbers of babies.

If you are thinking of acquiring pet rabbits, please consider adopting a pair from a rescue organisation. Please, also take the time to research what rabbits need for a satisfactory life. 

Our branch rescue rabbits are fostered by our partner the Rabbit Residence Rescue whose website has lots of photos showing how much more interesting rabbits are as pets if they are given accommodation that lets them do more than a couple of hops in either direction in a hutch that is more like a prison cell than a home. 

If you are interested in adopting one of our rabbits, please make contact with Caroline initially by phone to make an appointment to visit. Her mobile number is 07904 397 378

Caroline also needs volunteers willing to help with care of the rabbits - and would also like to hear from any gardeners who can take away rabbit manure as this is surprisingly expensive to have removed by waste contractors.

Cat population

Two interesting science articles about regulation of the domestic cat population size, tip Saving Pets.

"Each cat-owning household kept 1.3 cats on average, with the majority keeping one (75.8% households) or two (18.7%). For the 260 cats, the mean age was 7.1 years, the median 6 years, with a range of 3 months to 22 years. There were significantly more female (143; 55%) than male cats (117; 45%). Only seven cats (2.7%) were sexually entire, and these were all ≤6 years. Crossbred cats outnumbered pedigree cats by a ratio of 3.3:1." (Demographics and husbandry of pet cats living in Sydney, Australia: results of cross-sectional survey of pet ownership doi:10.1016/j.jfms.2008.06.010 )

"Recently, neutering of domestic cats has been encouraged by veterinary surgeons and rescue organisations as a means of population control for both the pet and feral populations. This is likely to have profound effects on cat population dynamics (and population genetics). In an attempt to quantify this, we have carried out population studies, by means of door-to-door surveys in Southampton and the surrounding area. The aims were to quantify levels of neutering, and investigate the recent reproductive status of the cat population.

The most comprehensive of these surveys was carried out in a 50 ha area in the Shirley area of Southampton (UK). Householders were interviewed from 949 (80.8%) of the 1175 residences in the area. This revealed a population of 315 cats, of which 21 were pedigrees (and were excluded from further analysis) and 294 were mongrels. Overall neutering rates were very high: 96.8% of adult males and 98.7% of adult females were neutered. The oldest cats in the survey had been born 18 years previously, so it was possible to examine trends in neutering over this time period. However, many females were allowed to reproduce before being neutered, so a more informative analysis came from relating lifetime fecundity (mediated by neutering) to year of birth. Mean lifetime fecundity could be calculated for each cohort where all the females had ultimately been neutered. The regression (Fig. 1) shows a dramatic decline in the mean number of litters born per female, from over 0.6 in 1978 to 0.12 in 1991–1992. With a measured median litter size of 4, 0.5 litters/female are needed to keep the population size constant; increasing neutering has meant that the cats in the Shirley survey area fell below this level of fecundity in the early 1980s. In 1994, owned cats in the area could only produce sufficient kittens to maintain the population at approximately 25% of its present level."

(Feral cats: their role in the population dynamics of Felis catus doi:10.1016/S0168-1591(99)00086-6)

So, a combination of education and help with costs where needed can prevent pet over-population and the need to put down healthy animals.

Report on pedigree dogs published

The independent RSPCA-commissioned report on pedigree dog breeding and the need for change is now available.

Cat with broken jaw

She was picked up as an injured stray over the weekend and taken to Vet24 for first aid. They established that she'd got a broken jaw and probable nerve damage or crack in one front leg, so they gave her pain relief and fluids and asked me to arrange for Nicola to take her to the RSPCA clinic in the morning.

Got it all sorted, then later that evening they phoned to say an owner had turned up and would do the transfer herself as she was already registered with the clinic. Next day, at lunch-time, Vicki phoned asking if the cat was still expected as it was past closing time and they wanted to go. Phoned Vet24 and they confirmed the cat had been collected together with her notes. Where is she?! 

They'd noted down a mobile number for the owner, so I phoned that. 

Weird conversation with the owner who was clearly now completely spaced out and unaware that her cat had basically just had pain relief; she might seem "fine" now, but she wouldn't be once it had worn off, and anyway she wouldn't be able to eat with her jaw flopping loose.

Phoned the NCC and asked for one of the local inspectors to visit and check what was going on. Upshot is that the kitty is now back at Vet24 and hopefully will be transferred (by us) to the clinic for her surgery on Thursday.

Stray dogs

From the South Cambs website:

"Under the Environmental Protection Act 1990 any dog found wandering in a public place alone can be seized by the council as a stray and taken to kennels. Owners will have to pay a seizure and kennelling fee before the dog can be released. If the dog is not claimed within seven days it will be signed over to the kennels for possible re-homing and you as the former owner will loose all rights to its return.

From April 2008 Cambridgeshire Police no longer have any responsibilities for stray dogs and are not legally obliged to accept any that are brought to them. However, arrangements have been made for the Police to accept stray dogs on behalf of the council outside normal office hours and at weekends at Parkside Police Station in Cambridge.

It is a legal requirement that every dog in a public place must wear a collar and tag with identification. This enables anyone finding a stray dog to contact its owner."

This is an extremely helpful decision by Cambs. police. If your dog strays, be aware that the reclamation fee may be as much as £100 if the council has had to board him for several days, or used its out of hours arrangements. I've just had to refuse to help someone with no money and a £100 fee to pay. Unfortunately we just don't have enough funds to help with anything other than lifesaving treatment. In any case, I'm doubtful whether this would be an appropriate use of charitable funds; the council charges fees as a deterrent as well as a way to recoup its costs.

Australian Bushfires

RSPCA Victoria (RSPCA Australia in the State of Victoria), has an appeal page for donations.

Statistics for January

During January we rehomed five dogs and six cats, neutered fourteen dogs, thirteen cats and thirteen rabbits and provided veterinary treatment for 219 dogs, 124 cats, 9 rabbits and 11 miscellaneous small animals.

RSPCA home-checking

Anyone who has felt offended by the checks we do before placing animals for adoption or fostering should read two news stories which broke over the past few days, as they show the kinds of situations home-visiting is designed to prevent.

The first comes from the US

Prosecutors said Chambers placed only six of the 28 dogs he received from the animal group, and three died from injuries that appeared to have come from fighting. Two other dogs were put down by police, and at least one dog that Chambers said had been adopted was found at the pound, according to court records. (via the Pet Connection blog). More on this story here.

Best Friends, the animal welfare group who placed the dogs, do seem to have interviewed Chambers and tried to get some background information about him, but it doesn't appear that anyone independent actually went and looked at his facilities to check that they were suitable. I think some of the comments about them are a bit harsh, as they probably did find that dogs who had been used to living in a "free range" domestic situation weren't happy being kennelled long-term and that was why they were so anxious to move them on for rehoming.

The second is a desperately sad illustration of why we ask apparently obsessive questions about whether the household will include small children (including ones who visit regularly), and what arrangements will be made to ensure that they will never be left alone with dogs.

Neighbours say the baby was asleep in his basket on the ground floor of the house when the dogs attacked.

They heard screams shortly after midnight as Wilson ran into the street shouting for help. They went into the house to find Jaden still being mauled by the dogs.

Dogs are large-mammal predators who would kill animals much larger than themselves in the wild. Even quite a small dog is capable of doing a terrible amount of injury. Normally our own dogs are socialised to us and would not harm us. BUT:

• Babies may not be recognised by a dog as belonging to the same species as adult humans.
• When babies or small children are only intermittently in a house they may not be seen by the dogs as part of their "pack" (wolves don't have grandmothers or step-mothers), and this may create a particularly risky situation.
• If a dog has been accustomed to behaving as a dominant member of the family he may resent children who don't behave in a "respectful" manner.
  
• A child may quite innocently do something which causes a dog to bite in fear - for example by falling onto a sleeping dog.
  

Bottom line: small children must not be left alone with dogs (and it must be remembered that an older child may not be in danger herself, but may not be capable of protecting a smaller one).

Home-visitors' training day: change of date

The home-visitors' training day has been rescheduled to Sunday 1st March from 10.30 to 3.30 at Cherry Hinton Village Hall (not the same place as Cherry Hinton Hall).

There are still vacant places. If you would like to attend, please email rehoming@rspca-cambridge.org.uk

Update on Santa

Hallelujah!

The wound flap has closed up except for a very small area at the lowest point (where all the pus and gunk was draining). He still needs to have it monitored and dressings changed daily, but a student has offered to take him home for a trial period. Hopefully by the end of next week he may be ready to go to his permanent adoptive home. As some of the healing is by "granulation," which is the formation of scar tissue, he may be left with some permanent lack of flexibility, but they're now confident that he'll live.

This just serves to demonstrate what terrible damage a rigid, unbreakable collar can do to a cat. This was a flea collar, and it probably didn't have any beneficial effect in killing fleas, but it very nearly killed poor Santa. As it didn't carry any identity tag it didn't even serve any useful function in linking him to his previous owner.

Another staffy, I presume

Part of yesterday's frenzy was the stream of phone calls, which I'm afraid may have been another reason why the students' "user experience" was less than optimal. Three of them illustrate something of a deeper truth about the assumptions we make about dogs.

Number one: Richard, one of the inspectors, called to say he'd been asked to take in a young dog, with a teenaged owner. Dog not well, and needing veterinary treatment, but in the circumstances not the owner's fault as she'd got no home, no money and no transport. I agreed we'd pay for treatment and boarding. As a bit of an afterthought, I asked what breed the dog was:"A Staffy, I suppose?" Richard said: "Yes, she was," and we both muttered a bit about how hard they are to rehome and not wanting to put down such a young animal without at least giving her a chance. 

Number two: Clinic client phoned: her cocker spaniel had badly bitten several family members, including a small child, without any provocation or warning. This was the second time he'd bitten and she was now waiting for the police and ambulance and would need to have the dog put to sleep as an emergency. I agreed with the vet that there really wasn't any choice and organised an appointment for her.

And, number three: Call from Richard to say the Staffy pup was doing fine, except for an upset tum, and one of the vet nurses had fallen in love with him and wanted to adopt him. Sometimes there are happy endings.

Staffys are not bad dogs (nor are cockers: rage sydrome, which may have been what affected this dog is very rare). They do need sensible care and training and many of them will fight other dogs, but so will Jack Russells. The main reason why we have a "Staffy problem" is that they happen to have become the pet of choice for owners who have lots of difficulties of their own, which means they find it harder to afford veterinary treatment costs and are more likely to have domestic emergencies that mean they have to rehome their dogs.

Busy day

Fortuitously, I'd already booked to take a day's leave so I could do the RSPCA stand at the University Careers Service "working for a charity" event, so I was available when Marion phoned this morning to say her road was completely iced up and she couldn't get her car out to cover reception at the clinic this morning.

After hiking across the white hell that is Coldham's common* I got my chance to practice my rusty skills on the client records system—fortunately to a fairly scanty waiting room, as I rapidly discovered that it has evolved quite a lot since I originally did the training course on the basis that it would be handy to have someone who lives close who could cover in an emergency. Even more fortunately, Tina who also lives just down the road, did get in so there were two of us to kick the printer every time it jammed again.

Finished just after twelve, then another hike into town to set up the info. stand, which may have meant some students who planned to see it in their lunch hour were disappointed. However it was really well attended with lots of interest in volunteering as well as possible job opportunities.

*Anyone viewing from Canada can be considered to have laughed enough by now. In our defence, the problem with British snow is that there's not enough of it and it's not cold enough. Most of the time cars are driving on a very thin layer of ice with a nice surface lubrication of wet slush, so tyre chains probably wouldn't help much.

Update on Nicholas

As you can see from the photos, his confidence has come on by leaps and bounds. He's still slightly nervous of my own cats (can be beaten up by little Fern who must weigh about a quarter of what he does), but he's stopped hiding.

Once the weather improves I'm thinking of moving him down to the cattery to see how he behaves there as its much easier to rehome from somewhere where people can have a choice of cats to view.

Technical Large Animal Rescue

Reading Technical Large Animal Rescue or its companion website won't qualify you to rescue animals, but it may terrify you enough to protect you (and the animals!) from "fools rush in" syndrome. 

TLAER is really intended as a textbook to accompany practical instruction in rescue techniques (and it can't be stressed enough that most of the techniques fall into the "don't try this at home" category and are not things that can be learned from a book without the practical aspect). 

It would also be useful as a casebook of examples of things ordinary owners can do to prevent their animals getting into trouble and needing to be rescued and possibly as a source of suggestions of practical things that voluntary groups might do to improve rescue facilities locally. 

SSPCA press release

Having had phone conversations where I never did manage to make the person on the other end believe our clinic isn't run by the PDSA, the Scots have my sympathy, even if I do think they might have phased it all a bit more tactfully.

The USPCA are even more unlucky with the potential for confusion with the other Irish SPCA's in the Republic.

This earlier article gives some background on why the three societies need to be separate legal entities.

Legacies are always going to be a contentious issue, as there's no way to go back in time and ask the testator why a particular charity was selected. Individual RSPCA branches are separate charities in their own right and there's almost equal scope for ill-feeling about whether legacies should go to a particular branch, or to into the national "pot".

Briefly: If you live in Scotland, then your local SPCA is the Scottish SPCA. In Northern Ireland, it's the USPCA. In England and Wales, you have a choice between the National Society (your legacy will be used to fund activities such as the Inspectorate which are managed centrally), or your local branch (your legacy will be used to fund animal welfare work within the branch area).

If you would like to make a legacy to RSPCA Cambridge (see map for our area of activity), the way to avoid any possibility of confusion is to ask your solicitor to specify our full name "RSPCA Cambridge and District Branch" and charity number (205098). 

And finally...

A spokesman for the RSPCA denied that the charity had run Scotland-specific fundraising campaigns. He said: "Some digital channels don't allow adverts not to be shown in some areas, but we refer all Scottish donors to the Scottish SPCA. It is more trouble than it is worth for us to aggravate people."

I do actually believe him, even if no-one else does...

More comparisons

Compared with the London Ambulance Service fiasco, the NCC really doesn't look too bad. Note that the annual budget for the LAS is about £200 million — roughly double the RSPCA's annual income. They get approximately the same number of calls as the NCC over the course of a year.

Cambridge in the snow

Pretty, but not really quite sufficient to justify the shock and awe.

Comparison

Some figures from the Home Office performance report on Cambridgeshire police make an interesting comparison:

* Police Officers: 1,379
* Police Staff: 892
* Community Support Officers: 197
* Other Staff: 25
* Special Constables: 210

Budget 2007/08: £116.0 million

Cambridgeshire alone has an annual income that roughly matches the resources the RSPCA has to fund all its national services (Inspectorate, animal homes, campaigns, scientific etc.). Next time you hear that someone phoned the RSPCA and "no-one was available to come out that day," please remember those figures. It isn't that "no-one cares".

Home-visitors' training day

We'll be holding a training day for volunteers interested in becoming branch home-visitors on 22nd February, at the Block Fen animal centre.

Home visitors are a crucial element in responsible animal rehoming, as they make it possible to reduce the number of unsuccessful placements which break down and lead to animals being returned. We're not trying to catch prospective adopters out, but by visiting them in their homes before an animal goes out we can ensure as far as possible that they understand what they're taking on and don't have misconceptions about what can be expected from the animal they've selected.

If you might be interested in attending, please email rehoming@rspca-cambridge.org.uk. There are plenty of places available and the role playing part of the course works best with fairly large groups, so don't worry if you think you might be interested but aren't certain whether it's right for you.

Focus group

Spent Thursday afternoon at East Regional HQ being part of a "focus group" of RSPCA volunteers as part of BDO Stoy Hayward's strategic planning review for the society. I don't think I've ever been a focus group before.

I have to say that, from an initially sceptical position, I was very pleasantly impressed that they had obviously done a lot of background homework and had structured the session to work around the limitations of the fact that we were a fairly un-representative, self-selected group. Once again, I think it's a case of getting what you pay for, and it was probably right to go for quality advice that's useful rather than something that gets binned.

We won't know the final outcome until all the group sessions have been completed and the complete result has been presented to Council. 

Some points that came out of the session:

• Nearly everyone felt management of the Society had improved over the past few years, with a better relationship between HQ and the branches and less of a tendency for HQ to try to micro-manage everything we do.
• The inspectorate is very thin on the ground in relation to their workload. We need more inspectors, animal collection officers and animal welfare officers.
• Inspectors' time may not be being used to best advantage, one example of this being the requirement that an inspector should periodically visit and examine any animals taken into care as a result of his/her investigations. This enables the inspector to report on any improvement in the animal's condition as something seen at first-hand, but might be as effectively done by an animal care assistant or vet at the centre where the animal is kept.
• Urgent attention needs to be given to the position of case animals, taken into care as a result of a prosecution, but not signed over by the owner to the Society. In some cases legal proceedings can drag on for as much as two years. This may not be a problem for some species, but it is unacceptable for dogs to be routinely kennelled for that long. We urgently need to press for changes that would permit them to be put into foster homes.
• Everyone felt there is a degree of isolation between the geographical regions, with branches only meeting within their own area.
• Everyone felt there is a need for reappraisal of the role of the Branch Development Advisers (BDA). BDA's officially act as liaison between HQ and the branches, but they also have an enormous and unmanageable workload being expected to provide advice on all sorts of things and also to step in if a branch is unable to attract enough volunteers to form a committee. The general feeling was that the work they do should be separated into the advisory role (which should be reassigned to a team of experts with special knowledge rather than expecting one person to know everything), and the mentoring/management role which is most significant for assisting very new committees or recruiting a committee from scratch.
• Everyone was concerned that we are not succeeding in recruiting young committee members at branch level to replace us when we dodder off into the sunset.
• There was a general feeling that Council is possibly too large and needs to be reduced to no more than 15 members, but strong disagreement about how they should be appointed. Possible methods were: 

1. Entirely by a national ballot of the membership.
2. A mix of regionally and nationally elected members (the current situation); 
3. A mix of nationally elected and appointed members (with the appointed members being co-opted by the elected members for their special skills or knowledge).
   

Personally, I would be very reluctant to see the regionally elected council members disappear. The argument against them is that the sitting candidate is rarely opposed because people are very unwilling to displace someone they know and like personally. So elections are generally only contested when the incumbent has retired and several people stand, or when there is a point of principle at stake (e.g. if the sitting candidate has taken sides in something contentious). Arguably this isn't democratic, but I'd say that the counter argument is that it means that people are kicked out if they're doing a poor job (or if there's serious disagreement with the stand they've taken on some issue), but there's no incentive for "political" point-scoring for the sake of it. Above all they are elected by people who know something about them and have knowledge of animal welfare work at the coal-face.

Ballot of the membership would be a more democratic option if the members had more genuine interaction with the candidates. As it is, in most cases all the only evidence ordinary members have to make a decision is the candidate's printed election address. The regional members do at least have an electorate with the knowledge to hold them to account if necessary.

Cat facial recognition software?

Webomatica have been playing around with iPhoto and found that its face recognition component can apparently also identify cats from pictures of their faces. As you might expect, it doesn't work for all-black cats, but I wonder if there are potential uses for people managing large feral cat colonies or shelters trying to identify lost cats, and keep track of animals they've taken in. Taking a digital photo at the point of booking-in a cat would be a low-stress, un-invasive way to track that cat through the system.

Rat brothers (slightly experimental)

Some videos of the rat brothers who came in over the weekend. Not very good quality as they're only from my phone and I think the eco-bulb in my living room isn't bright enough. They are up for rehoming, but this post is mostly intended as a test to see whether video works at all.

Updates on Santa and Joshua

Unfortunately Joshua had quite a serious setback last week, due to slippage of the repair to his pelvis, which caused constriction of his pelvic canal, making it impossible for him to pass faeces normally. This means he's back in the Vet School and has had another operation to put the pelvis back and create what's known as a "false joint" to stabilise his damaged hip, which had dislocated again.

They've just phoned to say it looks reasonable so far and he's now more comfortable.

Better news on Santa, who had another operation to close his collar wound last week, and so far it looks as if the skin graft has taken. He's not out of the woods yet, as it could still break down again, and we won't know for sure for another two weeks.

Why we tell you to keep cats in for at least two weeks after adoption

Cats are not like dogs (which is probably not news to most people). A settled group of cats will recognise one another and bond socially, but they do not roam around together like a wolf-pack. Individual cats will leave the group's resting area to hunt singly, and, if something traumatic (like noisy fireworks) makes the group scatter and run they will re-group by returning to their familiar area. They get to know where there are safe hiding places and will run for them in case of danger.

By initially confining a new cat in one room, until confidently eating, using a litter tray etc., then allowing her to explore the house, and only letting her outdoors after several weeks have elapsed, you are establishing that your home is the safe core area where your group lives. This means your cat's instinctive reaction will be to attempt to flee indoors if anything outside startles her. If something prevents her from entering the house, her instinct will be to hide reasonably close at hand, rather than running away. Once the house is accepted as home, a normal adult cat will cautiously explore the surrounding area and won't get lost. A cat who is released before the house is seen as home, will tend to wander seeking familiar surroundings and will get lost (or return to their previous home).

This is why "indoor only" cats who accidentally get out can usually be retrieved without too much trouble (because they hide close by) and why cats who escape during holidays or trips to the vet really are lost.

Bit of good news for a change

Delighted to hear that the Rabbit Residence has had its planning permission renewed for another year. Everyone who volunteers there will still need to be cautious to avoid noise, obstructing driveways etc. as permission might not be renewed in 2010 if the local residents can prove the rescue is causing a nuisance to them, but it's a great relief.

Improving our fund-raising in 2009

We urgently need to increase our fundraising. If we had not received a substantial legacy last year, we would have been in very serious trouble — and we cannot expect a similar windfall this year. 

Last year's legacy will see us through 2009, but we will then have to start cutting back our services unless we can scale up our fund-raising efforts.

If we can succeed in opening a shop in a busier part of Cambridge that will help, but we cannot hope to do this instantly, and it will take time for sales to build up, even if the general economic climate picks up.

One way in which we can make more money without any extra setting up costs is to increase the amount of textiles which we sell on for recycling. Prices per ton are now actually higher than they were this time last year, and the recyclers will take even worn or damaged clothes in order to recover their fibre content. 

If you live near to either of the shops (188 Mill Road, Cambridge or 156 High Street, Newmarket) and are thinking of clearing out your old clothes, please don't throw them out with the rubbish. 

Providing they are clean (so they're not unpleasant for our volunteers to sort), we can use almost all textiles, including curtains, sheets etc, but not duvets or carpet. 

Cash flow figures for 2008

Just finished the spreadsheet of the accounts for 2008. The final figures in the branch Annual Report will be a bit different because these are adjusted for money owed by us (e.g. invoices for work done during the year not sent until the following month) or to us (e.g. VAT rebates not yet received). However the "raw" cash flow figures give an impression of the financial situation:

Total income: £378,880

Total expenditure: £242,877

Of this, £66,549 was spent on running the animal clinic, £40,515 on veterinary treatments at private vets and £33,237 on boarding animals until they could be rehomed. £61,860 was the overheads of running our three shops (including rent, rates and staff wages). 

Shop profits suffered a drastic fall to just a tenth of the amount we made in 2007. Considering the terrible general state of retail sales, we may have been lucky not to have actually made a loss.

On encouraging people to get their pets neutered

This topic can become very heated, as some people feel the problem of homeless pets is so serious that we should simply refuse help with the cost of veterinary treatment to anyone who lets their animals breed. Others would like to see us offer universal free neutering; or campaign for legislation to enforce neutering; or refuse to work with any person or organisation involved with pet breeding. 

One possibility would be to follow the stance of the Dogs Trust scheme for dogs belonging to homeless people. This scheme does not pay for any costs associated with whelping or pregnancy and requires owners to get their pets neutered within a set length of time after registration for help with veterinary treatment. The trouble with this is that it's not an awful lot of help to the pet who's brought to us already in labour. In fact, like mandatory spay/neuter programs in other countries, it falls down because any sanctions for non-compliance are quite likely to hit the pet much harder than the owner. 

In practice, we do the best we can. We offer low-cost spay/neuter at our clinic and by voucher at private vets. We won't help with the cost of vaccinating litters of puppies which are clearly going to be sold on, as that's just increasing the potential profit per puppy and encouraging the owner to breed another litter. 

RSPCA Week 2009

Once again Tesco stores have kindly given us permission to collect outside their main stores during RSPCA week, which this year will run from 27th April to 3rd of May.

We need as many collectors as possible to get maximum benefit from this opportunity, and this year it will be particularly important because of the generally gloomy outlook for fund-raising.

In past years the public have been very generous—this is not one of those events where you go home thinking it would have been quicker and easier to stick a tenner in your own tin and go home to put your feet up. Even a few hours collecting typically raises a useful amount, and is all money we otherwise would not have had.

If you might be able to help, please email rosemary@rspca-cambridge.org.uk 

It would be helpful to know approximate numbers as soon as possible as we need to order tins, badges etc.

The map below shows approximate locations of the stores in our branch area.


View Larger Map

National Rabbit Week 24-30 January 2009

See the National Rabbit Week website for more information.

Staffy neutering campaign

David Grant, of Animal Hospital fame, is profiled in the Independent today.

In my opinion, the root cause of most of these cases seems to be the worrying trend towards owning these dogs as accessories, and as weapons. Because of the demand for certain types of dogs for such purposes – primarily on inner-city housing estates – there has been a huge increase in dog breeding for undeclared profit. As a result, we are seeing a lot of puppies who are diseased due to poor breeding. The number of dogs being dumped is at an all-time high, and Battersea Dogs' Home can no longer take in Staff-type dogs. The problem is seriously out of control.

Fortunately, in our more rural area, things haven't reached this pitch, but there's still a huge problem of irresponsible breeding of Staffordshire and other bull terrier dogs.

And, of course the puppy with parvo died

Just had the bill for last weekend's rottie puppy - euthanasia and cremation.

PLEASE, if you take on a puppy or a rabbit: get them vaccinated. You wouldn't think it was OK not to feed them, "because I can't afford it."

If you live within our branch area and are on state benefits (including working tax credit, but not child credit on its own), you can get your pet vaccinated at our animal clinic at the reduced rate of £18 (cat or dog) or £7 rabbit.

More rabbit woe

Two weeks into 2009 and Caroline has already taken in fifteen rabbits, homeless for a variety of reasons. 

Owner emigrating (5), moving into rented accommodation where no pets allowed (5), child lost interest (2), owner died of heroin overdose (3). 

Unfortunately it seems bunnies are not exempt from the effects of the current state of society.
On the bright side she has eleven booked to go out, so at least there is some movement on the rehoming front.

Caroline urgently needs more committed volunteers to help with caring for the rabbits. Even a few hours each week would be helpful—for example it would free her to do other things if she had some volunteers able to take over the job of shutting the rabbits in for the night occasionally.

If you might be interested, please email rabbit_residence@hotmail.com

Due to planning restrictions on the field where the rabbits are kept, volunteers need to be prepared to park some distance away and walk down the private road that leads there, and also to keep noise to a minimum.

Coming up in April

Region East will shortly be launching a campaign to encourage owners of "bull breed dogs" (i.e. mainly Staffordshire bull terriers, but also English bull terriers, American bulldogs etc.) to get their pets neutered.

Each branch in Region East will be supported by up to £1,000 matched funding from the Regional Fund. This will be in addition to the normal low-cost spay/neuter we offer for dogs belonging to owners on state benefits and will probably be free to owners registered with one of the local homeless charities. Owners on benefits, but not homeless will be expected to pay part of the cost, but less than we ask for other breeds.

The campaign will aim to educate owners about the large numbers of bull terriers we are asked to take in each year, and the need to reduce irresponsible breeding, but also to promote the image of well-trained, properly cared for staffies as wonderful companions in the right situation. 

Please spread the word by sharing the "staffy neutering" widget. Click "menu", then "share this widget" and copy the code to paste it into your own myspace page, blog etc.

Cat updates

Gizmo, our longest-staying cat, is booked to go to a home this weekend.

Joshua's various fracture repairs went well and he's due to go out to a foster home (with a view to permanent adoption if he gets on with the resident cats) today.

I picked up Sox yesterday evening and Janine's fostering him for a few days, and has a possible permanent home lined up.

Unfortunately Santa's collar wound has been giving some problems and the vets are planning to do another surgical repair once they get back the results of a bacterial culture of the infection. If these are OK, he'll have a graft from the fatty tissue near his gut to provide a basis for blood vessels to supply the (hopefully) now healthy skin flaps. This sounds pretty drastic, but generally does result in proper healing although it does leave the cat with a palpable lump in the area where the surgery was done, so a future owner needs to be warned that it's not a tumour.

Animal Welfare Statistics for 2008

Just finished the spreadsheet for 2008. During the year, RSPCA Cambridge rehomed a total of 190 animals, neutered 277 animals and provided 4,069 veterinary treatments (some animals had more than one treatment, so this represents less than 4,000 individual animals).

Rehoming email address

Apologies - there is a problem with the rehoming@rspca-cambridge.org.uk address at the moment. If you email rspcacambridge@aol.com that will work. There's a problem with the redirect from our email domain to AOL, but using the direct address will work.

Interested in becoming an RSPCA trustee?

Would you like to use your skills and experience in becoming one of the RSPCA's charity trustees? The Council discusses plans for the RSPCA and makes the decisions that will affect how the RSPCA deals with animal issues in the future.

The RSPCA Council comprises up to 25 volunteers elected to serve as the charity trustees of the Society.

Fifteen national Council members are elected by the votes of the whole RSPCA membership and serve for three years, retiring on a rotational basis... [read more on the National RSPCA website]

RSPCA branches are also directed by trustee bodies: each branch elects a minimum of seven and a maximum of fourteen committee members at its Annual General Meeting each year. Branch trustees normally play a more "hands on" rôle than members of the RSPCA Council, because branches rely less on employed staff, so the committee members are responsible for carrying out the board's decisions as well as making them in the first place.

To stand for election to the committee of your local branch you need to be an adult member of the society of at least three months standing at the time of the AGM, and to have been nominated by two other adult branch members. It is important that committee members are "team players" and willing to learn. Most people will have their own particular areas of interest, such as pet rehoming, veterinary treatment or campaigns, but it is important that everyone is prepared to take a balanced view and accept that all aspects of branch activities are important in fostering animal welfare locally.

If you might be interested in standing for the Cambridge branch committee at our next AGM, please email secretary@rspca-cambridge.org.uk. If you're not already a member of the Society, you will need to apply to join, and you can do this online using the link at the side of this blog.

Another vomiting puppy

Yet another owner with no money and a 10 month old rottweiler puppy, "rescued" from someone else, and never vaccinated. Puppy has had vomiting and diarrhoea for three days, and the diarrhoea now has lots of blood in it.

I've agreed that we'll cover the cost of an initial consultation, but it doesn't look good.

Holiday planning

Amazon will pay us a small commission on all book purchases which start from this web page.

Evictions

I hope this morning's call from someone who is due to be evicted from her home and needs to find somewhere for her animals is not the first sign of an avalanche. We've already noticed that the rate of rehoming seems to be slowing as people think twice before taking on new commitments. If this is accompanied by significantly increased numbers of emergency requests to take in animals, then we are looking at real trouble.

We always need more volunteers willing to foster animals (mostly cats, but some dogs and smaller animals too). If you might be interested, please email rspcacambridge@aol.com. 

We will reimburse costs for pet food, litter etc. to fosterers. 

Rabbit Residence featured in Cambridge Evening News

Cambridge Evening News's video section has a piece on Rabbit Residence. Good write-up and very cute video of groups of bunnies hopping about in the snow.

If you might be interested in adopting a pair of rabbits from Caroline, please email her at rabbit_residence@hotmail.com

Progress report on new charity shop

Not an awful lot, I'm afraid. We are trying to purchase the remainder (5 years to run) of the lease of a shop on Burleigh street. This is turning out to be more complicated than we had thought, because this is an underlease (from Coral, the bookmakers), who in turn lease the shop from the Prudential Insurance, the freeholders. Because so many entities are involved, all of them need to agree before a final lease agreement can be signed—and we need to be satisfied that we aren't risking branch funds by making ourselves liable for unexpected costs.

Renting commercial property is rather different from renting a house or flat to live in because the landlord isn't normally the one who pays for any repairs—these are either done and paid for by the tenant directly or else the landlord does the repairs and charges the tenant. It's also different from buying a house leasehold, because a shop lease is basically just an agreement to pay rent for a certain number of years—the only "resale" value it has is the worth of any fittings put in by the previous tenant. So we have to take advice from a local surveyor about the value of the fittings and the probable cost of repairs during the term of the lease, and what we will need to spend at the end of the lease in order to return the unit to the condition it was in when Coral originally took it out. 

We also have to get confirmation from the ultimate landlord (the Pru) of the rent they will be charging. This is what we're waiting for at the moment, as we daren't take on the shop without knowing for certain what the rent is going to be over the next five years. 

We do know the current rent (we are not completely daft), but the sticking point is that this rent was due for review in February 2008. At that point shop rentable values were still fairly high in Cambridge, and it would be legitimate for the landlord to set the rent at an amount which would have been fair a year ago (i.e. more than the current value, and more than we could afford to pay in the current conditions). 

Another cat

Not very full details yet as Vet24 phoned immediately after the finders had brought the kitty to them. The cat is all (or almost all) white and about four or five years old. No collar or chip, and I don't think they'd definitely confirmed the sex, although they spoke about "him" which suggests they think this is a neutered male. He's apparently fairly bright, but has a probable pelvic fracture, so "the other Rosemary" is going to pick him up from them early tomorrow morning on her way in to do reception at the clinic.

Horses and ponies

A few RSPCA branches have facilities for caring for horses and other large domestic animals or have arrangements to board them in private livery stables, but in general the National Society takes responsibility for finding suitable accommodation for equines if they are taken in as a result of rescues or cruelty investigations. 

In the case of very large incidents, like the one at Amersham, other equine rescue organisations will usually chip in so that animals can be distributed among centres which have available space and suitable facilities. 

Rescues and cruelty investigations are always done by the Inspectorate in conjunction with vets and often with technical advice and help from experts such as the World Horse Welfare field officers. This means that it is important to contact the National Control Centre, rather than our branch, if you see horses which are neglected, injured or in danger, as this avoids delay.

The contact number for the Control Centre is 0300 1234 999. You may report incidents anonymously if necessary, but it is very important to give an accurate location for the animals, and preferably a contact phone number so that an inspector can call you back to get further details if needed. 

Be aware that if a case goes to prosecution it may be as long as a year before it comes before the courts—so the animals may be removed from a site, but you may not see any reports in the local media until very much later.

Held together with 'laccy bands and bits of string

Many of the people who come into contact with us for one reason or another get very frustrated because they feel we're not delivering the standard of service they expect. Conversely, many of the people we pay to provide some of those services aren't at all happy about the degree of pressure they're working under and the way the public often expect them field complaints about aspects of the RSPCA that aren't anything to do with them.

Clinic this morning was a case in point. One of our clients had bred some puppies from his bitch and one of them had diarrhoea. As the puppy was only three weeks old he was a bit reluctant to bring it to the surgery and he'd got it into his head that we ought to be able to diagnose and prescribe on the basis of a stool sample. He phoned in; argued with the volunteer receptionist about this and she took his number so that one of the vets could call him back. They were horrendously busy that morning and didn't get finished seeing patients until mid-day, at which point they still had several animals needing to be admitted to the hospital as in-patients and a string of other telephone call-backs to make.

By this time, Mr X. was pretty peeved that he'd not been called back yet, and decided to phone me on the out of hours number. All I could do was reiterate that the puppy really needed to be seen (otherwise there's no way to tell whether it's getting dehydrated) and that I would leave a message asking the vets if it was possible to call him a.s.a.p. Strictly speaking at this point I was asking them to bend the rules as the puppy a) could have been taken to the morning session and b) wasn't registered with the clinic (although its mum is) so isn't covered by our agreement with the Vet School to see registered patients outside normal hours in an emergency. Twenty minutes later he still hadn't got to the top of the urgent call-backs and phoned me ranting and raving that we didn't care about animals and why should he have to wait when his puppy was ill.

I am afraid that the answer is that you get what you pay for. Our annual turnover is around £200,000, which is a frighteningly large amount for a group of volunteers to raise. It relates to an annual demand for help for around 3,000-4,000 individual animals—less than £100 per animal. That means we have to do things on the cheap wherever possible. Our value to the University for student teaching means they charge us a lot less than a commercial rate for veterinary services, but it does mean consultations take longer (because the qualified vet needs to discuss the animals' conditions with the students). If we could pay the University enough for them to employ an extra vet at each session that would decrease waiting times, but that would mean raising at least another £40,000 every year. Similar considerations explain why our telephone availability is less than perfect (we're mostly volunteers taking calls in our spare time, not paid reception staff).

Experimental new pages for our rehoming

As an experiment, I've set up a second blog to display photos of the animals we have up for rehoming. I think this layout is easier to view than the current photo gallery, and Blogger's tagging system makes it easy to search for animals with particular characteristics, such as being used to living with cats.

Note that we don't always get photos of animals immediately they come in, because it depends on Janine travelling down to the kennels to take pictures, so if you don't see what you're looking for it's always worth emailing rehoming@rspca-cambridge.org.uk to ask.

Post-Christmas clearouts?

Our charity shops at 188 Mill Road, Cambridge and 156 High Street, Newmarket are back in action after the break and can make good use of any unwanted presents or other saleable items you may be clearing out. The old retro/vintage clothing shop at 184 Mill Road is now closed, but clothing and bric-à-brac donations are still very useful to us at 188.

We will be saving any really good items for our new shop in central Cambridge and selling lower-value items at our jumble sales at the Mill Road Baptist church. There is still a fairly good market for textile items for recycling, so even worn or damaged clothing, curtains etc. can help our fundraising efforts.

Plans for the new year include increased online sales of books. This will mean some re-organisation of the basement stockroom at 188 because the books we list on the internet must be shelved in order so that they can be located easily when purchase requests come in. This is very important because failure to fulfill orders which have been placed means a negative mark against us and might cause us to be delisted as a seller.

Hope this isn't an indication of things to come...

Aggravating message on Janine's answerphone wanting us to take in a nine year old labrador because the owners have now got a kitten and the dog is not getting on well with her. As it happens we're absolutely full up now and couldn't have taken the dog in any case, but it illustrates how the "Christmas Present Pet" problem has morphed over the years.

It's now incredibly rare to have requests to take in animals who were given as unexpected Christmas presents to families who didn't want them, and I think that educational message has got through. What we do see appears to be a kind of "holiday stress" effect whereby people want to give up animals because disruption of the normal routine makes keeping them more difficult; visiting grandchildren or children from a previous relationship are a common reason.

Hello 2009!

Hopefully not starting as it means to go on, with a 6.30 am call from the 24 hour vet to say they'd been phoned by one of the clients registered with our clinic, whose 16 year old dog was suddenly showing alarming symptoms of some kind of generalised allergic reaction.

The owners were evidently in such a panic that they'd forgotten how to make contact with us outside normal hours, by phoning the number given on their registration card. Instead they'd phoned the National Control Centre, who'd naturally said that our clinic is closed on Bank holidays. They'd then phoned the 24 hour vet and been horrified to find that the consultation charge alone for 6.30 on a holiday morning is £130.

Fortunately the receptionist at Vet24 was on the ball (one of the advantages of running on a shift system is that that staff are awake and in their right minds at peculiar times of day) and thought to contact me, so I was able to get them into our own out of hours cover via the University vet school, which is still reasonably expensive at that time of day, but nothing like £130.

I can't reiterate enough. If you are very strapped for cash it is more vital than ever that you make sure you understand how your own vet's out of hours cover works. If an animal is off-colour just before a holiday, don't hope for the best; get it checked out while the surgery is still running on normal charging rates. If you can't afford a private vet because you are on benefits, get your animal registered with the PDSA, Blue Cross or RSPCA before something happens.

And another rabbit!

She's medium sized and fawn coloured. Taken to Vet24 by someone who found her wandering just after Christmas.

More and more cats!

Pretty apricot tortie brought to Cambridge Veterinary Group on Cherry Hinton Road and a black and white tom cat at Arbury road vets. The tortie is fairly well except for a probable thyroid condition and the tom cat has a fractured pelvis which they think will just need cage rest. They're keeping both cats in for a few days to see how they go.

Update on Santa and Sox

Good progress report for Sox (the current blocked bladder kitty), who's doing well following his operation and has an excellent chance of being able to live a normal life from now on, except that he will always need to be kept on a diet of wet food with no dry kibble. Not so good for Santa (collar wound), as the injury has opened up again and will probably need to be closed with a skin graft.

Nice, peaceful Christmas day

Wonderful! No calls at all. After the Christmas Eve frenzy I was bracing myself for even more impossible to solve calls over Christmas day itself, but fortunately it seems that everyone managed to have their disasters beforehand.

The animal clinic will be open as normal on Tuesday, closed on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day, then back to normal opening times.

The Christmas Eve blues

Kicked off to a cracking start (excuse bad pun) with a kitten with probable broken bones in one foot (plant pot fell on his toe). As there's no RSPCA clinic session now until Saturday I agreed with the private vet that it wasn't fair on the kitten simply to give pain relief and wait until then, so we covered x-ray and support bandaging as well. If the x-rays suggest that the foot actually needs surgery the owner will go to our clinic on the Saturday.

Followed in short order by a vomiting dog (probably just an upset tum as she is fairly current with her vaccinations).

Next, and more worrying, an ownerless cat from Swavesey area with diarrhoea. She's not seriously ill, and the 24 hour vet was reluctant to have her occupying a cage over the whole of the break as the space will probably be needed for emergencies. The kennels where we board is completely full until some of the private boarders go home, and this is academic in any case as no-one is available for transport as Janine's car won't start. After some frantic phoning, I asked the vet to call the finder and ask if she would be prepared to have her back until after Christmas now the diarrhoea's been treated. To everyone's relief she was very understanding and drove in to pick up the cat. Annoyingly this one actually has been chipped, but it seems to have been done in America and none of the chip databases have any record of her owner's current address. Best guess is that she originally came from one of the bases and was either rehomed in Swavesey or got there by accident after hiding in a vehicle of some kind.

Santa, the cat with the collar wound is doing well, but needs to stay in for the moment as his wound is still draining. Yet another cat with a blocked bladder has been signed over to us as his owner couldn't cope and he's had his operation too and is also looking good.

And a kitten!

She's about nine weeks old, and black with white feet. Found in Isleham and taken to Swayne & Partners vets. She's not injured or ill, and if she'd been older we'd have suggested that she be returned to the place she was found, as it's most unlikely that a healthy adult cat in good body condition is lost or in trouble unless there are other factors (such as being found shut in a vehicle) which suggest a problem. That's not appropriate for such a small kitten, so we're boarding her at the vets over Christmas and will move her to our kennels in the new year if her owner doesn't turn up in the meantime. 

I'm wondering whether she belongs to someone staying at the marina for Christmas and managed to get out.

Happy Holidays - Summer ones, that is

If you plan to spend part of your Christmas break looking through catalogues of exotic places, please bear in mind that your pets' holiday arrangements need to be booked well in advance too. My spare room has two extra Christmas "guests" whose owners didn't realise that all local boarding kennels would be completely booked up a fortnight before the start of the break.

On the plus side, this has forced me to bite the bullet and relocate Nicholas to a pen in a busier part of the house and his neurotic reaction shows how necessary it was. After a day on hunger-strike, he's still complaining bitterly, but wolfing down his dinner and using his litter tray. He's still completely unaggressive, just very unhappy about enforced proximity to people. He must have been socialised at some point, because it's perfectly possible to pick him up (trembling like a leaf), and he makes eye contact when he cries asking to go back upstairs. After a bit of grumbling, "Why is that Cat making All That Noise," my own cats are ignoring him, which is a relief.