Cats!

I don't know what's got into the cat population of South Cambs. Over the past seven days we seem to have had nothing but calls about sick or injured strays, mostly turning out to be very old cats with "senior citizen" problems rather than traffic injuries or infections. 

I can only think that some of them are ones who don't go out unless the weather is really nice so that the neighbours don't normally see them. Many old cats do look thin, so from the neighbours' perspective it's not unreasonable to assume that the unknown cat suddenly appearing in their garden is lost and thin through lack of food. At least two of the current crop turned out to have owners who were very distressed that their pets had apparently been "kidnapped", and of course it's potentially quite dangerous if cats who are on medication are removed and don't get their pills at the correct time. There's also the worry that some owners may not know how to search for missing cats—unless they phone round vets and animal homes rather than relying on putting up posters they may never trace a cat who's been picked up as a stray.

I can't stress enough how important it is to ask around and put up notices before insisting that animal welfare charities should take away an apparently stray cat who is simply thin and somewhat unkempt-looking, rather than having any obvious injuries or infections. Removing an owned elderly animal is stressful and potentially dangerous to the cat and can cost the charity hundreds of pounds repeating veterinary tests which the real owner may already have had done.

Volunteer Opportunity: animal fosterers

We urgently need to recruit more volunteer foster homes for animals who are recovering after treatment.

These are usually cats (some dogs) who are recovering after surgery to repair broken bones and need to be confined in a cage to prevent them from running or jumping until the bone has healed. This is essential because the repaired section of bone remains fragile for several weeks after surgery and can break again if it's subjected to sudden force from violent movement.

Ideally fosterers would be fairly close to Cambridge as most of the animals will need to come back to our clinic there for several re-checks before they are full fit.

If you think you might be able to help by fostering animals, please email rehoming@rspca-cambridge.org.uk

Volunteer opportunity: Phone Rota

We need helpers with answering our emergency contact number on a rota basis.

This would involve having calls forwarded to your own telephone for an agreed period - e.g. every Wednesday between 9 am and 1 pm.

The most important reason for maintaining the rota is to make it possible for clinic clients to phone in for an emergency out of hours appointment if their pet has a problem that can't safely be left until the next normal clinic session. This is why we try to make sure that someone is available to pick up an incoming call within ten minutes.

Other calls are mainly from members of the public needing help with animal-related problems and many can be solved by putting them in contact with the main RSPCA control centre, dog warden service etc. 

The rest can usually be divided into ones asking for information about using the animal clinic (e.g. opening times, charges, what proof of benefit is required) and requests for help with out of hours veterinary emergencies where the owner is not able to pay for a private vet to treat their animal.

Full training will be given.

Animal Welfare Statistics for May

Badger is looking for a home

During May 2011 our clinic treated 245 dogs, 81 cats, 9 rabbits and 8 miscellaneous "small furries".  We neutered 12 dogs and 6 cats and chipped 9 dogs and 6 cats. We rehomed 3 dogs, 4 cats and 2 guinea-pigs.

I'm getting more and more despondent about the number of desperate calls we receive from areas so far outside our catchment area that there's no practical way we could possibly agree to see them. Most recent was from Croydon in Surrey, which I think I was able to help by putting the caller in touch with a PDSA clinic closer to her home. More worrying was from a private vet clinic near Peterborough, whose receptionist was phoning to ask where she could send a client with no money to get his pet treated free, and was shocked to find the answer is: there isn't anywhere. Unfortunately I'm very much afraid more and more vets are having to make a choice whether they will put down treatable animals, or give owners time to pay, knowing that many never will.

Dealing with ringworm in shelters

There's an authoritative fact sheet about ringworm control in a shelter setting on the UC Davis Veterinary School's Shelter Medicine site. Be aware that it's based in the US, so some of the veterinary preparations mentioned may not be available in the UK. However it does give a very clear explanation of exactly why ringworm is so difficult to deal with in a situation where there is continual pressure to take in more animals who will suffer or die if no space is found to house them.

Learning from the misfortunes of others

For shelters and animal centres

Most obviously the importance of avoiding panic actions and the importance of using the best scientific evidence to confirm exactly what is happening.

For those in charge of health and safety decision-making

The need to respect the emotional well-being of staff and volunteers—in terms of unhappiness and stress the efforts to protect workers were probably much more harmful to them than the original infection risk.

For animal advocates

Treating large animal charities as if they were quasi-governmental bodies makes things worse. One of the reasons why OSPCA was reluctant to go down the route of expensive treatment and testing to eradicate the infection was a genuine shortage of funds (like the RSPCA they have a lot of money, but spread very thinly due to the demands put on them). And one of the reasons why large animal charities are short of resources is because they're treated as though it's self-evident that they already have enough funds.

Too many animal advocates try to punish the large charities for not having enough funds, or set up organisations to "fill the gaps", so diverting resources away from the animals in most desperate need of help.

Bottom line: the majority in society as a whole dislikes cruelty and wants it stopped, but it does not feel the same intense bond with animals that we do. Transferring SPCA functions to government or local authorities would almost certainly mean more, not less, pressure to be "realistic" and "responsible" (for example to accept killing as the quickest way to eliminate ringworm and reduce the risk of human infection). Demands that the government "does something" to make animal charities more accountable are quite likely to translate into requirements for higher calibre (and therefore more highly paid) management.

One of the volunteers at the Ontario shelter has a blog, though, sadly, it looks as if she got disheartened and stopped posting in July last year.

I think one of her last posts is so important for the general truths it has to say about working to protect animals that I'm reproducing most of it here:

"The shelter will, once again, fill up, and those animals will need our help. I don't agree with their decision, but I do believe in the organization's long-term goal of making sure each and every pet finds a safe forever-home. Thousands of animals have been successfully adopted from the shelter, and with your assistance, more will be adopted in the future. If we truly want to make a difference, we have to educate our kids, friends and neighbours -- don't let your dogs or cats wander, neuter and spay them, and report all cases of abuse. 

Volunteer. Be a part of the team that will make sure this never happens again. And if you're as heartbroken as I am, then just imagine how this has destroyed the souls of the wonderful staff who care for the animals each day. They deserve our support and encouragement. I don't know how they will deal with the emotional fallout from what has happened."

Ringworm and animal shelters

The Ontario SPCA in Canada has just published the findings of an independent investigation into the handling of ringworm cases at their York region branch last year. It's extremely long and detailed (the link above goes to the summary), but contains lots of very important discussion, not just about how shelters should deal with the issue of ringworm infection, but also about the role SPCAs play in society. 

One thing that comes over very strongly is that the report's co-authors (the former Dean of Ontario Veterinary College and the former Chief Justice of the Ontario Superior Court) essentially looked at everything the SPCA was struggling to do and recoiled saying no-one could possibly cope with it all on the kind of budget they have available.

Ontario SPCA is one of the few SPCAs round the world which have statutory powers and duties to investigate and prosecute animal cruelty entirely independently of the police. It also has virtually sole responsibility for stray animals and apparently an open-ended commitment to take in unwanted animals. Unlike the RSPCA it does get some government funding for its law-enforcement role, but the amount is quite low.

This means its shelters are continually under pressure to house the unwanted and strays and also any animals taken into care as a result of ongoing investigations and prosecutions. Recent legislation imposes conflicting obligations to take all possible measures to prevent spread of disease, while forbidding vaccination of incoming strays because there is no way to get the owner's permission. 

Ringworm is particularly frightening to any shelter because it can infect humans as well as most other mammals, but it is a fungal disease (nothing to do with worms) which normally causes nothing more than self-limiting skin disease (possibly no visible disease at all) in healthy people and animals. 

This means there are really serious moral issues about dealing with cases in a shelter. On the one hand it's essential that the disease is contained (no-one is going to adopt from a shelter if it means all your children end up itching and scratching). On the other hand it's very difficult to justify extreme measures, like mass culling, to control something that the vast majority of people and animals will throw off with  quite minor  treatment.


In OSPCA's case the misery seems to have been compounded by the inherent inaccuracies in scientific tests for ringworm which meant shelter management could never be quite sure whether it was still present or not. The final straw came when staff and volunteers had become so distressed by the probability it would lead to animals being killed that they were refusing to notify management of possible human ringworm infections they were experiencing themselves. This was illegal under Ontario's Health and Safety legislation and the Ministry of Labour then stepped in.  

The independent investigation was set up in response to a campaign against the shelter sparked off by reports that all animals currently in its care were to be euthanased in order to stamp out infection. The failings which it did expose seem likely to fuel further campaigns and I think it's likely these will have the opposite effect from that intended by reducing funding for the shelter while increasing the amount of resources they have to divert into health and safety compliance, and possibly requiring them to set tighter limits on the numbers of animals they can house.


It seems likely that there never was an "epidemic" of ringworm and that the infection was in fact limited to the original group of very matted long-haired cats who had been taken in at the start of the incident. 


Ironically this report comes out as the e-coli salad vegetable incident demonstrates just how difficult it is to pin down the origin and spread of disease, even with all the resources of a government health department.


Incidentally, infections are not a one-way-street: animals can sometimes catch nasty bugs from humans  too.

Next dog show planning meeting Thursday 16th June

Holly and Graham, winners of our last show

This will be a combined dog show planning and volunteers meeting at the Corner House Pub, Newmarket Road, Cambridge, starting at 7.30pm.

Anyone interested in helping with the dog show on 9th July, or volunteering with the branch in general, would be very welcome. The Corner House does excellent veggie or non-veggie meals if you would like to eat as well as chat.

Adding up the costs

Some days I really worry that I am channeling the Reverend Arthur Broome, famous as the original founder of the RSPCA — but also for being thrown into the debtors' prison when he couldn't raise enough cash to cover the Society's outgoings.

Everyone seems to feel entitled to something from us, and it is rapidly getting to a point where things are completely top-heavy, with the number of people who think we should be doing, or paying for, something hugely more than those who want to help our work.

Part of the problem is that there is no useful feedback to animal owners to impress on them that they must do some planning about what they'd do if their pet was ill or injured. So many have no idea it may cost £100 just to have their animal seen—not treated—by a vet, on a Sunday or bank holiday. At that point tears and pleading won't do any good; lots of them genuinely don't have the ability to lay their hands on that amount of money at short notice.

If I'm unlucky and we get five of them in a day, then it's £500 spent that we can't afford—and most probably the animals will be put to sleep because actual treatment would have meant another £200-£600 that the owner doesn't have. Those five individual owners may have learned a terrible lesson (or they may simply go away thinking their pet died because we didn't care enough to pay the whole amount for treatment), but it doesn't have any impact on all the other people out there with pets and little or no money. 

So it's going to keep on happening again, and again, and again so far as I can see unless we can get on top of a system that gets treatment for the animal but does enforce some payback from the owner. Sadly hardly any vets will allow payment by instalments now, because people don't pay, so the animal charities are the only available solution.

It's no good saying it's the owners' responsibility to have enough money; or to take out insurance; or that they could have saved enough by cutting out holidays, because what matters is having the money available on the day, which most of them don't, and it's the animals who pay the ultimate price. 

Looking back over the past few months I am wondering whether the figures for euthanasia of unwanted animals are an almost pointless statistic because far greater numbers of treatable animals are being put to sleep through lack of funds, or, worst of all, dying in pain because they never even reached a vet. I'm almost certain that some owners ring up a surgery; are told the charge is £100 and just give up and wait for the animal to get better or die.

Sadly, I think being told their pet is going to be killed because they can't produce the money for treatment is the first experience many people have of facing up to responsibility that no-one else is going to sort out for them. All their lives they're being told they can't be expected to deal with things because they're disadvantaged, then suddenly they're slammed against the reality that their animal depended on them and no-one else is going to help—except us, and we simply can't raise enough money to do it.

The two giant chess pieces

These giant chess King and Queen pieces were donated to our Burleigh Street shop last Sunday.
(Update: now sold).

Branch AGM and committee nominations

View Larger Map

The Cambridge and District Branch's AGM will be on Tuesday, 28th June at the Friends' Meeting House, Jesus Lane, Cambridge (map)

Anyone interested in the work of the branch is very welcome to attend, but only RSPCA branch members are able to be included in the vote to elect the committee of trustees. 

If you are a branch member you will shortly be receiving the official meeting notice by post (some time next week as we are planning to stuff envelopes on the bank holiday Monday).

If you are a member and would like to stand for election, or to nominate another branch member, please take a look at the information about trusteeship on our main website. This page has a link to download an official nomination form.

If you are not an RSPCA member, but would like to join, you can do this via the RSPCA national website. It's too late to be eligible to vote in the current elections, but you would be able to next year.

Volunteer opportunity: Donate, Don't Dump Day

Gracie is looking for a home

Could you organise a "Donate, Don't Dump" day at your workplace, school or college?

The idea is that you ask everyone to try to bring in one item that's suitable to be sold in our charity shops.

Almost everyone has something that's too good to throw out but they never use or wear.

You can either bring the collected items to our shop, or we can collect them provided we have enough warning in advance.

This opportunity would be particularly suitable for school pupils who are not old enough to volunteer directly with the branch as it can be done at school (provided your teachers are happy with the idea.)

If you would like to organise a "Donate, Don't Dump" event, please email camshop@rspca-cambridge.org.uk or newmarket@rspca-cambridge.org.uk (depending on whether you are local to Cambridge or Newmarket.

Rabbit Awareness Week on Twitter

Sunday at 61 Burleigh Street

Thank-you for all the fantastic donations, including this incredibly realistic soft toy, some superb pictures, delightful Hello Kitty charm necklaces, and a pair of two foot high chess pieces.

Ffiona, Wayne and Phil have been adding more shelves to our books and media section.

We've also got a selection of May Ball frocks and suits and lots of fresh summer blouses and tops which are flying off the racks as fast as our volunteers can steam iron them and put them out.

Drop by for some fantastic bargains.

We urgently need to increase our fundraising to meet the increasingly worrying costs of veterinary treatment, which I will discuss in another post.

Animal Welfare Statistics for April

During April our animal clinic treated 224 dogs, 78 cats, 3 rabbits and 5 miscellaneous "small furries". We neutered 16 dogs and 7 cats (cat spay/neuter numbers are low at the moment because Cats Protection is running a free neutering campaign by voucher, so it's generally more beneficial for cat owners to use these rather than use the clinic). We microchipped 13 dogs and 9 cats.

Volunteer opportunity: Minute taker

Basically this involves attending our regular monthly committee meetings, taking rough notes and then writing up minutes of action points agreed and circulating them by email before the next committee meeting.

It may seem fairly trivial, but for the effective running of the branch it's essential to have an accurate record of what was agreed and who has been "volunteered" to action the decisions. The accountants who prepare the annual independent examination of our financial affairs which is required by law expect our records to include minutes of all meetings where decisions were taken.

This would be an excellent opportunity for someone with note-taking skills who is interested in learning more about the activities of RSPCA branch committees, but not yet prepared to take on the responsibilities of full trusteeship. Or, of course, for someone who DOES want to be a trustee and would like to get started with useful work that doesn't require huge amounts of time.

If you might be interested in this, email volunteering@rspca-cambridge.org.uk

Dog Show Helpers needed

These are some one-off volunteering opportunities which might suit people who don't have time for regular volunteering. We will be holding this year's dog show on Saturday 9th July as part of the festivities in the week of the Great Shelford Feast.

We need to recruit:

• "Runners" to take class entry details from the registration desk to the judges.
• Registration desk volunteers to take entry money and book dogs and handlers into the right classes.
• Helpers to set up and take down the show arena and stands.
• Rosette clerk to see that the judges have the correct rosettes and other prizes to hand.
• Before the day we need people to help with publicity: making and distributing posters etc. to local vets and other places where dog owners are to be found.
• Helpers to run stalls, tombola etc. and generally brandish collection boxes at people.
• Anyone with a large car or other vehicle suitable for transporting tables from Cambridge.

If you can put up a poster in a local shop, works canteen etc.  it would be a great help to us. Email volunteering@rspca-cambridge.org.uk if you would like some posters or fliers.

Phones and phone calls

Give the UK public a phone number and they will call it—except when they are suspicious that it is a premium rate line, when they may phone to ask me to call it for them.

The RSPCA National Control Centre takes over a million calls every year. That's roughly two calls every minute, and, since these won't be evenly spread over the 24 hours it gets hammered at peak periods. This is why calls take some time to be answered and why the control centre staff may sound unsympathetic—they can't spend time on anything besides getting down essential details that will enable the field staff to evaluate and deal with the issue.

Judging by the number of calls we get direct to the Cambridge branch, the total number of calls to all the RSPCA branches combined probably amounts to another million.

Altogether that's a LOT of phone calls. We try to deal with it in various ways, none of which are entirely satisfactory. Some branches have set times when calls will be answered, some have rota systems of volunteers, some have a phone that's permanently on answerphone and will sift calls and return those they can help. The nearest thing to an ideal setup is probably a rota of volunteers with other tasks that they can be getting on with between calls, although it does mean a lot of interruptions, and most branches simply don't have enough volunteers who can be available during the 9-5 period when most people are at work.

Then there's the vexed question of whether there should be a single branch number for everything or several numbers that can be treated differently, such as an emergency mobile number that's answered immediately, and an enquiry number that's answered when someone happens to be about.

This would probably work except that callers to the enquiry number tend to get fed up because no-one answers and try the emergency number. If you happen to be the person with the mobile in their pocket and you are on a bike this can make your journey a bit of a frustrating process.

Even for the National Control Centre with its staff who are employed to do nothing but answer RSPCA calls, there have to be trade-offs between various factors to generate a "least-worst" solution. The core staff work all the year round and develop a lot of background knowledge. At busy times of the year they are supplemented by pulling in extra people from the parent call centre company in order to keep waiting times before calls are answered to acceptable levels. These staff are trained, but they give slightly more of an impression of working to a script because they don't have the same depth of knowledge. The trade off here is between the need to keep down costs by using only the number of staff who are really necessary and the risk that animals will suffer if waiting times are too protracted and callers give up. At the end of the day it's pointless having a super-efficient system for taking calls if it doesn't leave enough funds available to actually deal with the problem once it's been reported.

Similar trade-offs apply when it comes to taking action following the phone calls; there is no point employing so many animal collection staff that there's no money left to pay the vet bills for the animals they collect. This is why we always ask callers whether it would be possible for them to take injured animals direct to the closest private vet, as this means the animal gets help more quickly and we can afford to spend more money on the actual treatment instead of on the process of getting the animal to the surgery. It's also why it's more cost-effective to pay for the use of private vets' existing facilities than try to set up lots of RSPCA hospitals which would all have overheads.

This can be upsetting for both ends of the incident—witness the usually calm RSPCA_Frontline's uncharacteristically sharp reaction to a follower who simply will not accept it's not possible to get a collection officer to her address instantly: "For animals in need - call 0300 1234 999. Swearing is unacceptable on Twitter and this account is also followed by children."

Ultimately the only solution is to increase our fundraising.

If you think you might like to volunteer to go on our phone rota, please email info@rspca-cambridge.org.uk 

Spread the word about our animals who need new homes

Roxy is looking for a home

If you use social networking sites like facebook or twitter, or have a website or blog, you can help advertise our animals by embedding our Rehoming Widget.

This automatically updates to show photos of the latest animals in need of new homes.

To get the widget code, click the "get widget" tab on the icon below.

Copy the code it offers and paste it into your blog or web page, or use the buttons to spread the word on facebook, twitter and other social media.

Volunteer opportunity: transport organiser

This is the first of a series of posts I'm going to run on the various volunteer posts we are trying to fill within the branch:

We often need to transport animals (mostly cats, but some dogs and other small animals) at short notice. This will usually be from a veterinary surgery where the animal has been given first aid, going either to our own clinic for further treatment or to kennels or a foster home to be boarded until rehomed.

This transport is usually done by volunteer drivers, but it can be time-consuming phoning round until one who is available at the time can be located because of the unpredictable nature of the need. At present the task of phoning round is done either by me or by Janine, our rehoming co-ordinator, but this is starting to be problematic because we both have full time paid jobs so we can't easily do the phone calls until the evening.

We would like to recruit someone who would be willing to take on the task of linking up the volunteer drivers with the driving jobs needing to be done.

This would involve the volunteer being available to take emails or phone calls notifying them that transport needed to be arranged and then phoning round the volunteer drivers to find someone who was available.

If interested, the volunteer might get more involved in trying to recruiting more drivers.

If you think you might be able to help with this, please email info@rspca-cambridge.org.uk

Why do people hate the RSPCA?

Opening of the Cambridge RSPCA clinic 1936

The Telegraph's Pete Wedderburn has a column with the provocative title, "Why do people hate the RSPCA" to mark RSPCA week. Coming from a country where there is no strong, centralised animal welfare charity, he's clearly baffled by the amount of bile directed at a voluntary organisation which last year:

1. Answered 1,163,240 calls
2. Investigated 159,686 complaints of alleged animal cruelty
3. Issued 86,354 animal owners with welfare improvement advice
4. Rescued and collected 130,033 animals
5. Rehomed 64,086 animals
6. Treated and helped 210,970 animals in its hospitals and clinics
7. Spent almost £4m on veterinary care
8. Microchipped 67,388 animals
9. Admitted 16,429 wildlife casualties into its four wildlife centres

Opening of the Eddington RSPCA Clinic 1955

The number of foaming-at-the-mouth comment posts following the column illustrate what he means. However only a few weeks earlier the RSPCA achieved a pretty respectable 7th place in the Reputation Institute's annual survey of charities; comfortably ahead of household names such as Oxfam, Children in Need and the National Trust.

Why the discrepancy? I think it stems from the distinction between the attitude of the public in general and individuals with passionately-held special interests. Someone who is in favour of wild animals being permitted in circuses and someone else who thinks all kinds of animal keeping or training should be eliminated will be equally fed up about the existence of a large, middle of the road animal protection organisation which the general public likes and looks to for guidance. 


I suspect this also explains why, every year, we have such difficulty making the most of RSPCA week, because the general goodwill that puts two pound coins in tins isn't matched by willingness to go one step forward and volunteer to help us do the collection. 


Maybe there's more to it, though. I wonder if there's a more general problem that's not just confined to animal issues. Because I'm trying to encourage more people to volunteer with our branch, I try to keep up with news about social participation and volunteering initiatives. One thing that's very striking to someone coming from an "old charity" perspective is how very negative much of it is—to the point of being more about destroying community rather than building it. Virtually everything is either about stopping something or about lobbying for someone else to do something and there's almost no sense that a group might decide they need a facility and then just go ahead and set it up. There's also a weird over-complication of some things—for example if our 1930s branch committee had needed to master this diagram before they started they'd never have opened the clinic. I can't help wondering if that's also why there are so many complaints about ordinary people feeling powerless; because they're never really allowed a sense of having achieved anything. There's something very seductive about the bonding effect of being angry together (I think this explains a lot of the "hate the RSPCA" activity), but it doesn't really lead to long-term satisfaction.


If people are encouraged to believe everything is run by some mysterious, elite "them" it does make it more difficult to persuade them that they only have to step forward and they will find most things are actually run by "us".


I think this is the root of the infuriating way in which the instant reaction to a branch which is having to make cuts in order to stay solvent is, not to help, but to waste more of the committee's time and energy by getting up petitions and making personal attacks on individuals. Some of this is pure Alinsky politics (though I bet they've never heard of him) and it doesn't work simply because there's no point flogging a willing horse. 


If you are an RSPCA member, please do consider putting your name forward for election to the branch committee. If you can, please attend your branch AGM to vote for next year's committee of management, and please vote in the forthcoming postal/online elections for the National Society's governing council. If you're not a member, please consider joining the RSPCA or volunteering, or both, and helping to create better services for animal protection.


Susie, over at the RSPCA Manchester and Salford branch explains why it's such a problem if members don't have enough of a feeling of involvement and ownership to motivate them to turn out to vote.

Volunteers Meeting this Thursday

At the Corner House Pub, Newmarket Road, Cambridge, starting at roughly 7.30pm.

Post-mortem on RSPCA week and planning for the Gt. Shelford dog show which is now getting alarmingly close.

Hope to see you there.

Sunday at our Burleigh St shop

Ffiona and Teresa have created an amazing "floating handbag" display.

We took £183, making this the best Sunday so far. Many thanks to the donor of the writing bureau which sold for £50.

Please keep the donations coming! We sell over 100 items in a typical day, so we need to receive at least 100 items to keep the sales area well-stocked.

Poor little Samantha

Samantha was found as an injured stray having been hit by a car. She has a broken pelvis but with cage rest this should heal by itself. 

Unfortunately not long after she'd come in, her foster carer noticed she was becoming chubby round the tum. A scan revealed that she is pregnant with at least three kittens who are sufficiently well developed that it would be unethical to abort them - they're already showing signs of movement.

As it would probably be impossible for Samantha to give birth naturally because of her pelvic damage we've booked her in for a planned caesarian just before the expected time that she should be due to give birth.

Charity Shop Gift Aid Systems

The new "gift aid" tills went live in our charity shops today, and should not only mean increased funds from every donated item which has been "gift aided", but will also help with tracking sales of different types of item and with stock control.

Basically this is how it works:

1. When a donor arrives, we will ask them if they are a UK income tax payer. If they do, we ask them to complete a declaration giving their name and address and stating that they wish us to be able to reclaim tax on the funds from any of their donations which is sold.
2. We take a sheet of self-stick peelable bar-codes and stick one code on the form, one on a card which the donor keeps and put the rest in the bag of donations.
3. When the donations are sorted and tagged for pricing, a bar code is fixed to the price tag, and an item code is written on the tag.
4. When the item is sold, the till operator scans the bar code, types in the item code and then rings in the price in the usual way.
5. The till periodically uploads details of sales of gift-aided items and sends off a claim to HMRC.

The use of the item codes means we can print out a record of (for example) how many ladies tops we sell. This helps with planning the shop layout (obviously if ladies tops are a good seller but skirts are slow, it would pay to expand the space for tops and reduce the skirts, and so on). Where special or valuable items are donated it gives us a way to track them through the system and reduce mistakes like selling pieces from a valuable china set individually.

Sunday at 61 Burleigh Street

"Merrythought" toy mouse

30s style dress in primrose

Striking gown (photo doesn't do justice to the details)

Thank you to everyone who dropped off donations today - please keep them flowing in!

Ffiona and Wayne were working hard on more shelving for the books section. Stop by next weekend to see the new selections.

In addition to the mouse, we also have a Merrythought teddy bear in almost perfect new condition, and we're continually moving out more summer frocks, tops, skirts, shorts and trousers.

We need your support throughout the year; not just for RSPCA Week. Please come in and browse. We're now open 7 days a week. 10am - 5pm Monday-Saturday and 11 am to 4 pm on Sundays. Sunday opening may occasionally be a little late as I open up on that day and I may be held up dealing with other  branch activities.

Updates from yesterday's RSPCA_Frontline Tweetathon

Archive of RSPCA_Frontline "Tweetathon" for RSPCA Week

Inspector Tony Woodley, who blogs on Twitter as RSPCA_Frontline, copied a selection of actual incident calls to the National Control Centre today as part of RSPCA Week.

This archive illustrates the huge range of calls to the RSPCA.

Remember that many of them will subsequently mean follow-up actions by local branches, such as providing veterinary treatment or rehoming animals taken into RSPCA care.

The Purebred Paradox Conference

The RSPCA's scientific expert on the welfare of dogs has been live-tweeting from a conference in the US. She tweets as GetPuppySmart. I've saved the conference tweets and some related materials as a Storify record.

Easter Monday at 61 Burleigh Street

Radiator-hanging cat bed

Unusual cat scratching post

 Lots of goodies for cat-lovers at the moment, including this fake-fur bed (to hang off a radiator), the unusual wall-mounted cat scratch post shown below, and various smaller beds, bowls etc.

The cat scratching / climbing tree is nearly as tall as I am and made of rattan cane. It includes several shelves for climbing or resting and is new and never used. It's intended to be attached to a wall by screw fittings, but could be supported by tying to banisters etc. to avoid marking a wall.

Opening on Easter Monday was a bit of an experiment, but sales were nearly as good as on a normal Saturday, so I'm hoping to do more bank holidays in future. We could do with more volunteers able to help cover as the usual weekday people would like to spend the holidays with their families.

If you might be interested in training to help with occasional and/or weekend cover at the shop, please drop by and have a word with the manager, or email camshop@rspca-cambridge.org.uk Initial training would be given by Ffiona on a Saturday, as she doesn't work Sundays or bank holidays.

Happy Easter tasks

Just signed off the branch management accounts for the end of the first quarter of 2011. NOT really my idea of a fun way to spend Easter, but it has to be done.

Some points are worth sharing:

First of all, and very encouraging. The Newmarket shop took  £3,615.22 in the two weeks it traded in February, and £6,428.11 in March. This doesn't yet translate into extra funds for the branch because shop rent is usually payable quarterly in advance, which means we had to use the March takings to pay the £6,900 rent for the next three months. The upside of this, of course, is that April and May's rent is now paid and, after allowing for rates, power, wages etc., the shop is making £2,000 per month profit over running costs and is on track to repay the setting up loan from the HQ while still making a decent contribution towards the branch's animal welfare work.

61 Burleigh Street's takings are well up on the first quarter of 2010, although the figures are skewed by the dreadful weather in January 2010 which stopped people coming out to shop:

           January       February     March

2011:£5,115.35

£5,273.31

£6,004.59

2010:£936.01

£4,020.85

£5,939.88

The bookshop is now making a modest profit, but we have to accept that Mill Road is simply not busy enough to attract enough passing trade to support having a paid manager.

HQ were very patient with us during 2010 and gave us a lot of leeway by letting us have vaccines and microchips "on account" to keep our clinic going. We've now been able to pay them in full.

Clarence is home!

Clarence was handed in to us as an injured stray, and we were delighted to get a call from his owner who had recognised his picture in our rehoming gallery.

Clarence was chipped in Switzerland before his family moved to the UK, which is why, although we could detect that he had a chip, we couldn't use it to trace his owner.

This is becoming quite a common occurrence as more people move between countries with their pets and I'm not sure what the solution is, other than, possibly, re-chipping animals after the move.

Logically you'd think that registering a chip for a pet passport to get permission to enter the country ought also to mean some kind of record that could be used to trace the owner of a found pet.

Volunteer Recruitment meeting

Just a reminder that the next volunteers meeting will be this Thursday starting at 7.30 pm at the Corner House Pub, Newmarket Road, Cambridge.

All welcome.

Learn how happy pet rabbits CAN be!

If you have a chance, do go to this wonderful opportunity to see how to have happy rabbits AND a beautiful garden.

Thank you Cambridge United!

Cambridge United kindly gave us the opportunity to do a bucket collection at their home match today. Final total was £188. Many thanks to everyone who either collected or donated.

We usually find that collections like this at events or outside specific stores are much more productive in relation to volunteers' time expended than ordinary street collections. For example the sum raised today was the result of 5 people collecting for 2 hours each. This is a great improvement on the kind of event that leaves me feeling: "Well I could just have donated a tenner myself and saved the effort."

So, PLEASE! If you have not yet put down your name to collect in RSPCA week, and you live in our branch area, email volunteering@rspca-cambridge.org.uk Even one hour after work in the evening will raise valuable funds to keep our services running.

Why we help some owners with their vet bills II

Reasonably-enough, many of our potential supporters don't see why they should give their hard-earned cash to pay other people's vet bills, and this is often hotly debated on the National Society's facebook page.

We've just had a case that perfectly illustrates why we struggle with the ethics of this:

One of our clinic users contacted our emergency phoneline because her pup had suddenly begun coughing up blood. She was a responsible owner who had paid for vaccinations and did have the money to cover the emergency consultation fee, but she didn't have enough money to pay for tests to establish exactly what was going on; even at our subsidised rates.

Worst case scenario would have been a blood-clotting disorder, which would be hopeless and untreatable. Best case would be some kind of infection, which could be relatively cheap to treat. 

BUT without knowing what kind of infection (and whether it actually was something infectious) treatment wouldn't have been possible. 

It would unfortunately have been perfectly reasonable for the vet to advise euthanasia on the grounds that there was a 50/50 chance that it was an untreatable condition and any money spent on tests would be wasted.

We agreed that we'd cover the cost of the tests (and then of treatment if the underlying cause was a simple infection), and today the results are back and show that the pup has lungworm. This is potentially fatal if the lungs are badly damaged, but there is a reasonable chance of successful treatment with relatively cheap wormers.

In this instance the owner probably won't be able to pay any of the cost back and will therefore decide to sign the pup over for rehoming. We have to insist on some kind of penalty if the owner can't pay anything because otherwise everyone would say they couldn't afford to pay and we would go bust and close.

But we don't want animals to pay with their lives because their owners can't find money at short notice.

A hundred pounds is an enormous amount of money to someone who is on income support, and frankly it doesn't help all that much to know that the cost would have been more like three hundred pounds at a private vet. 

If owners put off basic things like chipping, vaccination and neutering because they're short of cash it may cost us in the long run in terms of strays who can't be returned, animals with preventable diseases and unwanted litters who need to be rehomed.

Results of the volunteers' hard work at E61

We still need to improve the lighting, but it's amazing what an improvement filling in the cracks  and repainting can produce.

We're now putting out our summer stock and (as always!) more donations would be much appreciated.

If you would like to drop off donations by car, you can get to the back entrance of the charity shop via Paradise street which runs parallel to Burleigh st.

Please phone ahead (01223 312 802) to let us know you're coming, so we can let you in, or just park behind the shop and come round to the front entrance.

Animal Welfare Statistics for March

During March our clinic treated 229 dogs, 120 cats, 25 rabbits and one miscellaneous "small furry".


We neutered 12 dogs, 4 cats and 4 rabbits and rehomed 3 dogs and one rabbit.

Redecorations at our Burleigh St shop

Alan trying to get the rails back straight!

We closed two hours early on Sunday so that the paint would be dry enough to put the rails back up on Monday. I looked in mid-morning today to take these photos and it's already a great improvement with beautiful, evenly-painted walls instead of all the marks and holes where fittings had been hung and moved.

Open on Tuesday as normal.

As always, we need donations of saleable stock to keep our till ringing.

Emergency treatment

Our animal clinic's veterinary service provider will provide emergency treatment for registered animals outside normal hours. To become registered animals must have visited the Pool Way clinic during normal working hours (9-10.30 am Tue.,Wed.,Thur., Sat.), and to maintain their registration they must visit the clinic at least once every two years.

This is done to protect the animals' welfare and we must not abuse their helpfulness by using the emergency service for things that could wait until a normal clinic session, so the branch has a rota of volunteers who act as the first point of call for incoming requests for emergency treatment. During the day we can phone in to the hospital direct, but at night the procedure is for us to phone the duty nurse, who then calls in to the veterinary interns whose turn it is to be on duty on the ward. Unfortunately this does mean that late night/early morning calls cause the nurse to be woken up (the interns work shifts so are at least already awake).

Tonight was not one of the better ones; a caller whose dog was in labour first phoned in for advice, then about half an hour later to let us know that she had managed to organise a lift in to the hospital, and finally a third time to ask for the interns to be called again by phone as they didn't seem to be responding to the entrance door buzzer. The poor nurse must have been cursing us.

Charity shop this Sunday

We took £186 and Phil managed to get a lot of shelf-filling and tidying done in the book section, while Jefferson held the fort at the till.

Vinyl records are still popular sellers. If you have any old records that you no longer want, don't throw them away; we can turn them into cash to help animals in need.