Congratulations to our Newmarket shop team!

Congratulations to our Newmarket shop team for achieving a fantastic 40% of gift aid sales in October. This represents a lot of hard work behind the scenes as gift aid tax relief can only be claimed if there is a paper trail from donated items to the funds they raise.

This means that our sales team must ensure each donated item is labelled with a bar code sticker matching the sticker placed on the gift aid form completed by the donor. When an item is sold this bar code is scanned at the till and the sale amount credited to the donor number. The till uploads sales details overnight and the computer system keeps a running total of the amount raised by each donor. Periodically I print and mail out the "donor letters" thanking donors and letting them know how much they have raised by their generosity. Once donors have been notified we are able to put in a claim to HMRC for the tax equivalent of the funds raised; meaning that we reclaim 25p for every pound of sales. 

That means an extra £500 raised by Newmarket in October—enough to cover the cost of neutering fifteen cats, chipping 70 dogs or providing 150 low-cost consultations at our animal clinic.

Shops, and the volunteers who keep them running, are the life-blood of the branch because they are our only source of regular income which can be increased by working harder.

We need more volunteers to help keep them in action. If you might be able to help, please drop in for a chat or email info@rspca-cambridge.org.uk We also need donations of saleable items and volunteers to help collect donations from people who aren't able to bring them in to the shops.

Revised national policy on branches

The RSPCA Council have updated the policy on the role of branches and it's worth reading the document if you might be considering the possibility of joining your local branch committee or volunteering with your local branch as it provides a concise summary of what we're all about. The image below is a bit small - so you may find it easier to read the PDF version.

In fact it's not enormously different from the branch Minimum Animal Welfare Standards which were agreed ten years ago: basically the priorities are to provide help (welfare neutering, microchipping, treatments) to prevent cruelty or neglect and to care for and rehome animals taken in when prevention fails.

RSPCA week isn't a success

To be honest it wasn't a big surprise that my inbox today contained a message from our HQ saying that Tesco are reducing the number of days during RSPCA week 2013 when we can collect donations outside their stores. 

RSPCA week has been incredibly valuable to branches over the years, but we've never been able to realise its full potential because we simply don't have enough volunteers to cover all the major Tesco stores over 7 days. Reasonably-enough Tesco now say it's not fair to say no to other charities who might be able to make full use of the opportunity.

The days we can collect will now be Friday May 3rd, Saturday 4th and Sunday May 5th.

If we make a real effort to achieve total cover in 2013, Tesco may  revise their decision and offer us the full 7 days again in 2014. If we don't ... we could well see our collection permission reduced even further.

Animal welfare is in crisis. Our inspectors are needed as never before and all the while there is the ticking time-bomb of people who have animals and won't be able to cope if they get ill, or injured, or if the price of feed goes up. 

Whether you think the RSPCA is too timid in its campaigns — or much too "activist" — please make a resolution to help us provide the basic welfare services that make animals' lives tolerable.

It would be an enormous help if you could spare just two hours to collect — either during 3-5 May 2013 or during 15-17 February 2013 when we have permission to collect at Pets at Home.

Sheep for live export at Ramsgate port

If you can help collect, please email info@rspca-cambridge.org.uk 

We also need more volunteers to help at our three charity shops and to set up a fundraising group.

Please also consider joining the RSPCA. The more members we have, more likely it is that government will pay attention when we lobby for better treatment of animals. More members also means a larger pool of talent to draw on for local branch committees and stronger democracy.

Cystitis!

Harry doesn't have cystitis: he's just looking for a home 

Feline cystitis, or to give it its more correct name: Feline lower urinary tract disease (FLUTD) is frightening to owners because any unexplained bleeding is scary. 

It can ultimately be a killer in male cats because there is a risk that it will cause what's known as a blocked bladder — when the cat cannot pass urine at all and strains so much that he may rupture his bladder or build up urinary toxins to a point which causes death.

In female cats urinary tract disease is less of an emergency but it should still be treated by a vet as soon as possible. 

In both sexes, low-level disease may cause the cat apparently to lose house-training (because he or she comes to associate the litter box with the pain of unproductive straining to pass urine) and cause the owner react harshly and so increase the stress which makes the condition worse. 

Today's early morning call from an owner whose female cat was passing small trickles of urine stained with blood was fairly non-worrying (although it would have been better all round if she'd kept up her registration so that she could have seen our out of hours vets today). As she wasn't acutely ill and being female was at low risk of blocking, she could reasonably be asked to wait until our normal clinic session on Tuesday morning. 

If she'd been a male with a blockage the story might have been much less happy. Surgical un-blocking can cost up to £600 at a private vet and by the time an owner realises there is a problem a male cat can be in terrible pain, to the point that waiting until our next clinic session would be inhumane.

Heart disease to round off a stressful weekend

This caller's cat had been missing for several days and returned on Saturday evening, apparently distressed and panting with her mouth open. She had been to the local private vet in the past, but her owners had no idea that they would be closed over the weekend and that the out of hours cover would cost £100 just for the consultation fee. 

They decided to wait until Monday when their normal vet would be available, but by mid-afternoon on Sunday the cat was so visibly distressed that they called the branch helpline in desperation. 

I agreed that we would cover the consultation fee so she could have first aid today and they would bring the cat to our Tuesday clinic to register her (with a silent mental reservation on my part that she might not live until then).

Even responsible owners who get their pets vaccinated and chipped and provide routine vet care don't always recognise just how expensive it may be if an emergency happens at an inconvenient time or if a condition doesn't respond to initial treatment and requires several visits to the surgery.

Considering that the recent PDSA survey showed that a third of pet owners aged between 18 and 24 would give their pets up if the cost became too great there's a time bomb of unwanted animals in the making.

Myxomatosis

Had a call to our helpline yesterday which left me feeling exasperated and upset in more or less equal measure. The person concerned clearly did love animals but also had some issues which meant she wasn't really capable of looking after them properly. She'd "rescued" three rabbits from someone else who'd been threatening to kill them by wringing their necks, but couldn't afford the cost of vaccination at her local vet and didn't have transport to get them to our clinic from the remote village where she lived.One rabbit had already had to be put to sleep because he had myxomatosis and now a second was showing the same symptoms but the vet wouldn't see her because the owner hadn't yet paid off the debt for treating the first one. 

In any case, because it was Saturday afternoon, the surgery she could reach on foot was closed and being covered from their other one in Cambridge which would have cost her £100 for an out of hours consultation and in any case wasn't accessible because she had no transport and no money for a taxi.

Our fantastic inspector offered to go out to the rabbit as she clearly needed to be put to sleep to end her suffering but the owner called back about twenty minutes later to say the bunny had died.

I've offered to cover the cost of getting the surviving rabbit vaccinated at the private vet, which is trying to close the stable door after the horse has bolted but will give him a chance if he's not already incubating the disease.

We can't offer to pay off her existing debt, both because we can't afford it and because it would risk opening the floodgates to everyone who hasn't budgeted for their pets becoming sick.

The problem of vet treatment costs isn't straightforward. The only way we could provide anything like an NHS for animals would be if virtually every animal lover in England and Wales joined us and helped raise funds to do it. We can't simply wash our hands of it and say it's the owner's responsibility and that's it because there are too many people with animal who really are not capable of making the hard decisions needed to ensure they only have the pets they can afford to care for properly. On top of that there are the good owners who lose their jobs, have accidents themselves or take on uninsurable animals with existing medical problems.

Transport!

Writing this at 4.30 am having had an emergency call to the branch helpline just after 4 so no point trying to get back to sleep as I've got to be up by 6 anyway.

Our clinic has out of hours emergency cover for animals who have been registered by attending a normal clinic session, meaning pets whose owners couldn't pay the £100+ unsocial hours fees which a private vet would charge have access to low-cost treatment instead of having to take their chances until morning.

What we can't do is provide transport; I can't really wake up one of our volunteer drivers at this time of night and it costs around £100 to call out the commercial animal ambulance. RSPCA inspectors are not there to provide a taxi service and in any case there simply aren't enough of them on duty at night for it to be practical to divert one of them away from other emergency calls because some pet owner has no arrangements for transporting their pets.

The 4 am call was regarding a large dog whose owner was doubtful whether she could get him into a car and is the third this month where the main issue for getting the animal treated was transport to the vet.

At reasonable times of day we can sometimes arrange for one of our volunteers to help but there really are limitations on what's possible.

Cambridge Evening News have kindly given some publicity to our survey about access to veterinary treatment and it's looking as though transport is a fairly major issue in stopping animals getting timely care.

Click here to take the survey

Broken hip

In many ways the most problematic cases where owners have no money for treatment are those where an animal's life is not in danger, but he or she is suffering severe pain. A bitch with life-threatening pyometra fairly clearly has to be either treated or put to sleep, but in the case of less obvious conditions there is the risk that an owner may simply leave without the animal getting any useful treatment.

We had an example of this today: a dog who had been lame for some time and treated with pain-killers then referred to our clinic because the owner did not have enough funds for further investigations at the original private vet.

X-rays showed that she not only had a broken hip, but also an older injury to another leg - raising the concern that both legs might break down unless the hip was stabilised by operating.

This would cost £1000+ at most private vets and £300-£500 at our clinic meaning that the owner would be in a difficult situation even with our help. In the event, he said he had no money at all, so we offered to provide pain relief free of charge to give him a few days to think about it and a choice of raising the money to pay or signing the dog over to us for treatment and rehoming.

We can't be in the business of providing completely free operations with no sanctions on the owner or we will simply run out of money and not be able to treat any animals.

Equally, there has to be a safety-net so that dogs like this one don't simply go back home and suffer.

Local or National RSPCAs?

RSPCA branches cover the whole of England and Wales and are responsible for providing welfare services within their area. These would normally include:

• Caring for and rehoming animals signed over via the RSPCA inspectors or taken in as a result of cruelty prosecutions.
• Providing treatment, care and rehoming for injured stray or unowned animals.

• Provision of low-cost veterinary care (or help with the cost of vet treatment) for pet owners on very low income whose pets might otherwise go without proper treatment or be put down.

• Low-cost neutering to help prevent the birth of unwanted pets.

• Low-cost micro-chipping to help to ensure strays can be re-united with their families.

Branches are normally run by unpaid volunteer committees elected by local RSPCA members whose job it is to decide what facilities are most needed in their area and then work to raise funds to pay for them.

If not enough members are prepared to stand for election or vote, then control of the area returns to the National Society at Horsham and the branch is run by paid employees until a volunteer committee can be recruited again. This naturally means the loss of local knowledge of welfare needs and the mix of skills provided by a group of people based in the branch area pooling their interests.

I don't think the people who originally set up the structure of the RSPCA intended branch elections to work quite like this, but they've effectively evolved into an annual referendum on whether the branch should be run by local volunteers or by the paid staff at Horsham. If you're an RSPCA member and you don't take part in the local democracy of your branch you're voting with your feet for the Horsham option.
If you love animals and want to keep the "local" aspect of your RSPCA branch: get involved! By joining the RSPCA you'll gain the right to vote to elect the members of your local branch committee and the National Council members who govern the RSPCA. If you can spare a few hours each month to attend meetings, do consider standing for election to your local committee. You may not think you have fantastic business or admin skills, but many important committee jobs don't need a huge amount of  prior experience and training is available. The most important things are willingness to work as part of a team, love of animals and being prepared to learn.

If you might be willing to join the committee of RSPCA Cambridge, email rosemary@rspca-cambridge.org.uk

The second nicest kitten?

Waiting for further news of the kitten our inspector dropped off at the cattery today. She's apparently got a non-painful but wonky-looking leg which will need investigation at some point but doesn't bother her and can probably be treated as just one of those things.

What has piqued my interest is that Richard described her as, "The second nicest kitten he'd ever taken in". It does leave me wondering what the absolutely nicest kitten was like.

The Power of We

A rather ungrammatical title for a post about something that really is true.

Animal welfare won't improve unless WE do something about it.

James: in a bit of bother with a collapsible tunnel toy

None of us can do everything; all of us can do something.

Working together, we can achieve far more than we can individually.

The RSPCA is not perfect, but  animal lovers who are prepared to accept the need for give and take can gain a much more powerful voice for animals than as lone voices.

If you want animals to have better lives, please consider RSPCA membership. Membership adds your voice to the power of RSPCA campaigns, and it will also give you the right to vote in branch and national trustee elections.

If you have time, please consider whether you might be able to help our branch as a volunteer, or by joining the branch committee as a trustee.

Rabbit Awareness Week 2012

Take a look at this video for more information about keeping pet rabbits happy.

Our clinic in Cambridge offers low-cost rabbit vaccination (£17) to owners who receive means-tested state benefits (including working tax credits). This will provide a year's protection against myxomatosis and Viral Hemorrhagic disease. By taking your rabbit to our clinic you will also be registering them, which has the additional benefit of giving them access to our out of hours emergency service which is restricted to registered pets.

Click the tab above for more information about the clinic.

If you've not visited this page before, we'd be grateful if you could complete our survey into veterinary treatment costs as this will help us improve the services we provide locally.

 

Survey: please help

We're trying to develop a better picture of the unmet needs for veterinary treatment in the area served by our animal clinic and beyond.
Please encourage anyone you know who has pets to complete it: all information is anonymous, but will help us to find what we need to do to reduce the numbers of animals who go without the treatment they need.

Grim weekend for cats

Sadly several calls from people wanting to know whether we'd found lost cats, and, even worse, asking what to do about dead cats they'd found. One caller wanting advice about breaking in to a property where he suspects his cat has become trapped which I hope our National Control Centre were able to help with.

But, one call did make me very upset and angry. It was from a good samaritan neighbour who was trying to help a mentally handicapped man whose cat had been mauled by a dog. First there was the infuriating fact that, in spite of all our publicity efforts, this gentleman had still not understood that he needed to register ALL his cats with our clinic if they were to be eligible for the out of hours service our veterinary provider offers. This isn't something that I have the ability to treat leniently; our agreement with the vets is that they will see animals who have been registered by attending a normal clinic session at some time over the past two years and I don't have any ability to make exceptions for hardship. Secondly, he'd got no provision at all for paying for treatment; even if I'd been able to get him into the low-cost scheme he couldn't have paid anything. Thirdly, the private vet his helpful neighbour contacted was refusing even to provide euthanasia unless we agreed to cover the cost, plus the consultation fee.

I don't think it's likely that the cat's life could have been saved even if we could have covered the cost of attempting surgery, and I appreciate that vets are in a very difficult position because they would go out of business if all their potential clients could just say they couldn't pay and get things for free. However they do have a professional obligation to relieve suffering and if they demand we pay more than we can raise by fundraising we will go bust and there will be no source of help for vulnerable owners.

It's extremely worrying that so many owners still seem to have no idea that free or cheap veterinary treatment isn't automatically going to be available if something goes wrong (for example, see this thread about access to PDSA treatment on the dogpages discussion forum).

Duck to Water

EFRA committee discusses dog control and welfare today

Animal Welfare Statistics for July and August

In July 2012, our clinic treated 237 dogs, 117 cats, 9 rabbits and 6 miscellaneous small furries.

We rehomed 12 cats, 1 dog and 2 miscellaneous, and took in one case dog from the inspectors and six injured stray cats via the RSPCA National Control Centre.

In August 2012, our clinic treated 243 dogs, 125 cats, 4 rabbits and 4 miscellaneous small furries.

We rehomed 8 cats and 2 rabbits.



A further three cats were put to sleep on veterinary advice that treatment would be futile and only prolong their suffering.

We took in 8 cats and three rabbits as injured strays via the National Control Centre.

Over the year to date, our clinic has provided low cost treatments for 1,815 dogs, 688 cats, 51 rabbits and 39 small furries - a total of 2,593 animals altogether.

Collecting at Pets at Home this weekend

As always, these opinions are my own thoughts and not the responsibility of the RSPCA.

Pets at Home is the largest chain of pet stores in the UK. Many of these stores offer additional services such as pet grooming and micro-chipping and have assistants trained to give advice about flea and worm products so that the store is almost acting like a pharmacy for animals. The company also owns a franchise of veterinary surgeries and many of these surgeries operate out of the same building as the pet stores. It has potentially enormous influence on members of the general public who keep animals because of the all-inclusive nature of the services it provides.

And it does sell animals.

The stores don't sell puppies, kittens, or adult cats and dogs, but they do sell rabbits, guinea-pigs and smaller animals as well as fish and captive-bred reptiles.

Many UK animal charities (for example PDSA, Blue Cross) already have a relationship with the company because they can't justify turning down a potential source of help for the animals who need them. In the past, the RSPCA has always held back, taking a view that fundraising need shouldn't be allowed to compromise our message about the terrible problems caused by impulse purchase of animals.

Frankly this has not worked: the number of people who buy animals and contact us demanding help within a matter of days is growing, not decreasing. The danger of compromising our message is finely balanced with the danger that what we say will be ignored if ordinary animal lovers come to believe we want to end pet keeping altogether. Most people who work in pet stores probably choose their job precisely because they like animals, not because they are heartless exploiters, and name-calling doesn't help convince them that change is needed. If we've had a somewhat biased view of them the same probably applies the other way round and a genuinely closer relationship may convince them that we're not making up our stories about the enormous problem of unwanted rabbits.

This matters because if they're telling their customers there isn't a genuine problem it discredits the work of the RSPCA and potentially impacts on all the other things we're trying to do for animals.

Worst scenario sees us with even more limited funds, because we've lost the confidence of ordinary people, and call after call continuing to come in from impulse buyers with sick animals abusing our volunteers because they think our funds are being spent on "politics" instead of helping animals.

So this weekend represents a toe in the water. All over the country RSPCA branches will be collecting to raise funds for their welfare activities in their local Pets at Home Stores, and we need to recruit more helpers.

If you might be able to help collect in Cambridge or Newmarket, please email info@rspca-cambridge.org.uk

Rabbit Awareness Week - one day only offer!

On Wednesday 19th September, our animal clinic will be offering FREE rabbit health checks for owners who are on means-tested benefits (which does include working tax credits).

In addition, there will be an opportunity to get rabbits vaccinated against myxomatosis and VHD for just £17 (again this is restricted to owners on qualifying benefits).

The clinic opens for booking in at 8.30 in the morning and no additional animals can be booked in after 10.30 am. To take advantage of this offer you need to bring some proof of benefit (a bank statement showing relevant benefits being paid in is fine).

Rabbits are one of the trickiest pets to keep healthy, so we hope this will be a small step towards improved rabbit welfare in Cambridge.

If you can't make it on the 19th, don't forget rabbit vaccinations will be available at our normal clinic sessions throughout the year for just £17.

Cambridge is a high risk area for myxomatosis, so it makes sense to get your rabbits protected.

Vaccination at our clinic also means your bunny is registered to use our low-cost out of hours emergency service should they become ill or injured outside normal clinic hours. But remember, you need to keep up your pet's yearly booster vaccinations to maintain your registration.

Grand bookshop relaunch tomorrow!

By 7 pm this evening we decided the shop was as ready as it's ever going to be and staggered home, to be ready for an early start tomorrow. Our volunteers have repainted all the walls; put up extra shelving; shampooed the carpet; washed the windows; repaired the light fittings, then rationalised the book categories and filled the shelves with as much fresh stock as possible.

We'll probably still need to do a small amount of shifting around if the amounts allowed for the different    classes aren't yet quite right and some of the most interesting books are still in boxes that won't be accessible until we've completed the re-organisation of our basement stock-room. However there will still be lots of bargains and interest for book-addicts when we open tomorrow at 10 and the "hidden store" will gradually flow out onto the shop floor as we empty boxes.

Many thanks to former city MP Anne Campbell for agreeing to do the official opening and to everyone who worked so hard on the refurbishment or helped by loaning equipment or donating materials, including ASDA, Cutlacks, Halls of Cambridge, Cambridge Resale, Homebase, Lloyds TSB.

Special mention must go to Claire of ASDA's Community Life project who put in an enormous amount of work driving forward the renovation, and to Pat, Liz, Alison, Paul and Eileen who worked incredibly hard to get it done in the time available.

We still need your book donations!

Please keep donations of books, CDs, vinyl and DVDs coming: the interest of a shop like ours depends on a constant input of fresh items so that customers know it will always be worth their while to stop by and see what's new.

At the moment the bookshop is open from 10 am until 5 pm from Monday till Saturday (we'd very much like to recruit some extra volunteers to make it possible to open Sundays too).

Our current target is to increase our sales by £200 per week so that we can generate £1,000 profit which can be used to support our low-cost animal clinic.

PLEASE don't forget: DOGS DIE IN HOT CARS

Please visit the main RSPCA website for more information about keeping animals safe in very hot weather. Some dogs may be at risk even of heat stroke even if you are careful not to leave them in a car.

http://www.rspca.org.uk/allaboutanimals/pets/dogs/health/dogsinhotcars/-/article/CAD_DogsDieInHotCars

 http://www.rspca.org.uk/utilities/faq/-/question/ENQCADKeepingPetsCool/category/Animal%20in%20distress/

http://www.rspca.org.uk/allaboutanimals/helpandadvice/seasonal/details/-/article/ENQ_Seasonal_Advice_Summer

What's worse than the kitten season?

The caesarian season.

Just (12.30 am) had a conversation with a frustrated vet about the number of people who don't get their cats spayed and don't have any funds to deal with the consequences of something going wrong. 

It can cost over £1,500 to get an operation done to save a cat's life after her uterus has ruptured because she's been in labour for hours with a kitten stuck in the birth canal. In those circumstances, of course all the kittens will be dead.

Even an uncomplicated caesarian for a cat can cost over £500.

In comparison, spaying a cat so that she does not give birth is incredibly cheap - usually less than £70 - and there are animal charities almost begging to offer financial help to people who really can't afford the cost.

Our latest rehoming poster: please display if you can

Fun dog show: pics from last year

Just to whet your appetites for our Bigger and Better show in two weeks time.

This year's show will begin at 12 noon (registration) with the first class starting at 12.30. Lots of side shows and activities as well as the main show itself. Please come along and help raise even more money to help local animals.

Ben, our mascot for the day

Winners of the "mismatched pair"

Waiting for the command!

Fastest recall

Slightly lumbering recall

Flatten your ears to reduce wind resistance

I retrieve too!

Village Vet Whittlesford kindly provided sponsorship

Some of the winners

In a bit of a tangle

More winners

A bit hot for some

Face painting and ice-creams!

Getting a thorough examination

Animal Welfare Statistics for May

During May the branch rehomed three dogs, two cats and nine ferrets. Our clinic treated 218 dogs, 68 cats, 10 rabbits and 8 miscellaneous small furries.

Numbers of rabbits seen by the clinic continue to be worryingly low considering that this is the time of year when rabbits should be vaccinated against myxomatosis.

In Cambridge even the bees are on bicycles!

Not really RSPCA- related, but I couldn't resist adding this photo of a swarm of bees who settled on one unlucky student's bike which she'd parked in the New Museums site where I work for my day job. (The bees are the brown mass hanging below the basket).

Heeelp!

Frenetic Sunday starting at 6 am feeding the cats, tableting those that need it and washing up a mountain of cat dishes.

Then to the bookshop at nine to load Nicola's car with boxes of books for our sale at ASDA. Unload, wave goodbye to Pat and Amy who stay to begin setting up, then return to shop and repeat the process.

Grab bike, off to Burleigh st to open up our shop there and let in Glenn with the large dog collecting box from the stall at Arbury Carnival.

On arrival, discover Saturday team evidently had several gigantic donations of sale items (good) but hadn't had time to do any processing (less good as stock room now so full I can't move).

Decide nothing I can do about this for the present and open up. 

Feed coffee to the wonderful volunteer who takes over the till and stagger back to do battle with the horror. 

Inspection of the bags fortunately reveals several of them contain things that can be processed while at the till; mostly this involves attaching gift aid stickers and a price and is easily done with small items such as DVDs and videos.

We recently put out an appeal for soft toys, and our supporters have done us proud; lots of these, and again quickly sorted and priced. Legally we can only sell soft toys if they have the "CE" kite mark which should mean they are safe for children.

In a couple of hours we must have put out at least 200 individual items between us. This is key to a successful shop as customers will only keep coming back if they see new stock coming out each day.

By 5 pm we are about ready to drop, but the level in the stock room has dropped enough for the remaining unsorted bags to be stacked fairly neatly in our sorting bins ready for the Monday team to start hanging and steaming clothes to fill the shop rails which have been depleted by shoppers during the day.

Cash up and reconcile the till and find we've taken £188.40; reasonably good for a Sunday. 

Unfortunately this means Pat and Nicola have to be left to pack up and transport the unsold book sale remains on their own, which is heavy work as only a proportion of books will go at any sale.

We need more help (or I need to be twins!)

Education?

I doubt whether fiction that beats them over the head with a moral works any better for children than it does for adults. These are now a bit dated, but the storylines do reflect Monica Edwards' own wrestling with questions about the way animals should be treated in a way that assumes children can think for themselves.

Some of them (Punchbowl Midnight and The Wild One are particularly relevant to the aftermath of the dairy calf documentary as they portray a fictionalised picture of life on a small scale mixed farm in the 1950s and the conflict between profitability and love of animals.

Traffic accident

Looking very poorly and having fluids

This poor chap was hit by a car either Wednesday evening or early Thursday morning. Luckily one of our clinic clients spotted him and knew the clinic was open so she could rush him straight down.  Although he looks very pathetic and sorry for himself in this photo there is a happy ending as his family phoned round and traced where he had been taken for treatment.

Before we knew he was owned I made up a donation page on JustGiving to raise funds towards his treatment. If you would like to donate to help ensure that we can provide treatment to the next injured animal, please visit http://www.justgiving.com/ditto

Dairy calves

Storify of the reaction to the "Jimmy's farm" documentary about male dairy calves. I have to say that I'm startled by the number of viewers who seem to have had no idea how the food they eat is produced.

Dogs die in hot cars

This is an actual page from the RSPCA prosecutions report for 2011. A moment's inattention has meant a hideous death for two dogs, a lifetime of regret for the person responsible and enormous distress for the police staff who tried to save the dogs.

PLEASE DO NOT LEAVE DOGS IN CARS UNATTENDED IN WARM WEATHER.

Doing what we can

These cuties were found living outside with their mum and we were asked to take them in so they didn't grow up to add to the unhandleable feral cat population. Fortunately mum is friendly and the whole family should be easy to rehome once the kits are old enough.

Healthy cats like this should need minimal expenditure on veterinary treatment—basically just flea and worm treatment, vaccination and neutering. Animals with serious injuries are much more of a difficulty.

At the moment we've had to impose a 12 month moratorium on taking in animals whose injuries will require surgery, simply because it's so hugely expensive.

You may have seen Wood Green's appeal to raise the £5,000 needed for surgery on an injured dog they took in last week. Most of the operations needed to treat strays we handle will be more likely to fall in the £400-£800 bracket, but we simply can't produce the money to fund several of these each week.

So it was with a very heavy heart that one of our volunteers took a call about a stray cat with a broken jaw. His surgery was estimated at £250; a comparatively small amount, but an amount that we simply don't have if we're to carry on meeting all our other welfare commitments.

Most of the other charities are in the same boat, but by phoning round Janine managed to locate a space in one of the shelters run by the National RSPCA which have an in-house vet so would be able to do the surgery themselves. Obviously there is still some cost involved, but doing it this way will get it down to an amount we can justify as not being likely to put other animals at risk.

Another of our volunteers will transport him there tomorrow morning.

It's not ideal; injured animals should preferably be moved around the country as little as possible, both for their own welfare and to save resources in terms of fuel and volunteers' time.

Lecturing people about their behaviour does not work

Using charity budgets effectively

Great presentation from David Bowles on educating the public rather than nagging them.

Exhausted

Got home about half an hour ago after working in the charity shop all day and almost immediately got a call on the branch 24 hour mobile. This is answered by volunteers on a rota system and is primarily meant as a way people whose animals are registered to use our clinic can contact us in an emergency.

Today was one of my days to take the calls and unfortunately this one was from someone who'd been put on to us by Directory Enquiries although he ought to have been told to call the RSPCA National Control Centre. He'd picked up a young hare which he thought had an injured leg and wanted us to take it.

Most people are reasonable when we explain that our clinic only has facilities for domestic animals and that they need to call the NCC, who will have contact details for local vets prepared to give first aid to wildlife. If he'd been closer to Cambridge I'd have taken a chance and suggested he went to the 24 hour vet in Milton, but this wasn't really practical and, in fact, when in desperation I did offer that vet's details as one I definitely knew was open on a Sunday evening, the caller became really angry and abusive, saying that as I obviously didn't care and was just fobbing him off he would kill the hare by running it over.

I contacted NCC and asked them to call him as a matter of urgency, but I've no idea whether he did kill the hare or not (or indeed whether it really was injured or was simply a young one sitting waiting for its mother to return).

We are not magicians; the kind of service which the public expects from the RSPCA would cost billions, not millions to provide. If you find an injured animal we will ask you if you can take it to the closest available vet, because that is the option that will enable treatment to start as quickly as possible. If you can't transport the animal, an inspector or animal welfare officer will collect it, but this won't be instant, because there are fewer than 500 field staff covering the whole of England and Wales. In some cases a volunteer may be able to get out, but we do have to eat and sleep sometimes.

Gearing up for RSPCA Week

Tony Woodley and the RSPCA's stance on campaigning

I think Tony Woodley's latest contribution to the debate on TwitLonger about the Grand National is so important, not just with reference to racing, but generally, that I'm reproducing it here.

#RSPCA works with organisations to improve welfare.  

"It's better to be in the tent than outside it shouting in". 

We have used this ethos in the way we work to greatly influence the law makers and policy makers affecting animal welfare since 1824 when we were founded.  

We work with the farm and research animal industries and have brought about massive changes in animal welfare in those areas. The respect as a legal and reasonable organisation that we have with authorities such as the Government, DEFRA, Police etc means we do get listened to and changes, though they may be slow, do get made. 

If we were to simply walk away from an issue saying we 100% disagree and so will then just campaign for it to end, we would lose that respect we have and effectively 'abandon' the animals and leave them with no independent body trying to improve their welfare. 

There are other organisation who may wish to carry out extreme and/or illegal acts in the area of animal welfare, that is not us and if we did become extreme and/or acting illegally, we would not have the influence we do have. 

It may not always bring about swift changes but it does bring about long term and effective change, for example the Animal Welfare Act 2006 which the RSPCA was hugely involved with drafting and is the best thing to happen for animal welfare for many many years. 

I hope this assists some with understanding how we work.

http://tl.gd/gvojnc 

I can't stress enough the vital importance of Tony's comment that to walk away is to abandon the animals.

Otherwise, continual very light blogging I'm afraid, due to the combination of our approaching annual audit and weekend duty at our charity shops.

Congratulations to the new inspectors graduating today

Sadly this is also the day HQ have announced that there are likely to be at least 130 redundancies of support and admin staff.

Admin staff don't get much appreciation, but the work they do does matter because they are the people who ensure that payments get sent on time, repairs get done and phones are answered. They are the links who keep the wheels turning and if they drop beyond a critical level those wheels will begin to drop off.

RSPCA Week: It's all about money...

And, yes, I'm afraid that it is all about money. 

Without funds to pay for veterinary treatment, pet food, boarding of animals we can't place in domestic foster homes, suitable animal housing, petrol costs for volunteers who move animals or pre-visit adopters, we can't help any animals.

We understand that most people are keen to do hands-on volunteering to benefit animals, but, without the financial wherewithal to cover materials and the things that volunteers can't do, there can't be any hands-on work.

Whatever your role in the branch, please look at your diary and work out a way to put in at least 2 hours helping with this year's RSPCA week collection. 

RSPCA week runs from 30th April to 6th May and we have permission to collect outside all the Tesco Superstores in our area (Ely, Newmarket, Royston, Cambridge, Fulbourn, Bar Hill and Milton). Rowena, our new volunteer organiser is working out a rota to cover as much of the available time as possible, so PLEASE email her at volunteering@rspca-cambridge.org.uk to let her know that you will do your bit.

Thank you!

What a busy month!

Things are really beginning to buzz now. Our new volunteer group is forging ahead with plans for a newsletter, re-vamped website and the best-ever RSPCA week collection effort. We also have an enthusiastic and growing team of helpers at the bookshop, which is now opening six days a week: Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Sunday. Anyone who might be interested in training to cover Tuesday, please email info@rspca-cambridge.org.uk as it would be great if we can make the full 7 days by early Summer.

The catch in all this is that, for a while, the existing committee members will be busier and busier the more help we get because new people need training and support. Don't get me wrong, this is GOOD! However it does mean light blogging and less attention than usual to some of our other activities.

If you can spare 2 or more hours between 30th April and 6th May, please email volunteering@rspca-cambridge.org.uk as we need all the collectors we can possibly recruit. Volunteer collections are one of THE most cost-effective ways of fundraising as there are virtually no overheads and donors like to know that all the money they give will be spent on helping local animals.