AGM results and some thoughts on "governance"

A total of thirteen members attended our branch AGM yesterday, so we were comfortably quorate and everyone standing for re-election to the committee got in. However, thirteen people out of a branch membership of roughly 300 people is really not all that great, and a total membership of 300 isn't ultimately going to be enough to sustain services to 4,000-odd people long-term. Add in the wider population who expect us to be able to help with wildlife casualties, injured strays and so on, and it's just impossibly top-heavy.

The RSPCA is a very democratic charity—if you want to get rid of me, you can vote me out—but it depends on people being willing to participate, put in some work to achieve our goals and accept that majority decisions must be final. The idea of working within a structure of rules puts some people off because they think it's "bureaucratic" but without rules to decide who can make decisions and when a decision has been made the result would be chaos and nothing would ever get settled.

To participate in the decision-making processes of the RSPCA the first requirement is to become a member. Anyone with a genuine desire to help animals may join, although application from someone who wanted to use their membership for an ulterior purpose might be rejected (for example someone who joined in order to reverse the Society's policies against battery farming would have their application refused).

Three months after joining a member is entitled to receive voting papers for National Society elections and to attend their local branch AGM and vote in the election of the branch committee. They are also entitled to stand for election to their branch committee, but are not eligible to stand for election to the National Society's ruling council until they have been members for at least five years.

Branch elections do sometimes result in policy changes (although a lot of the time just getting enough people elected to form a committee is a struggle). Thirty years ago this branch did no rehoming at all, and this was only changed when a group of new people were elected to the committee. What happened wasn't exactly like a parliamentary election as members of both the old group and the new group were elected at the AGM (creating a much larger committee than before), but the new group formed a majority and put through the policy change. This kind of sudden shift is comparatively unusual and most of the time committees gain just a few new individuals each year.

This poses a problem in itself because new members are essential if committees aren't to wind up composed entirely of octogenarians, but being the only person who doesn't understand what's going on can make newly elected members feel the rest are forming a clique to exclude them. If you join a branch, be patient, and don't expect to understand everything immediately. Branches are complicated organisations, handling substantial amounts of money and requiring a lot of sustained work to keep them going. If you join in and help with existing activities you'll find it all gradually falls into place (and you'll have a wonderful command of acronyms—NCC, IET, RTA, RHQ—just like everyone else!)

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Open garden this weekend!

That Channel 4 programme

Grim shop meeting this evening at 188 Mill Road. It's now long enough since the Channel 4 anti-RSPCA "documentary" to assess some of its impact and donations have been hit significantly. At least one commercial house-clearance agent who regularly gave the shop old books it was too much trouble for him to sell has stopped because he now believes we've got plenty of money and aren't spending it on the animals. The antique centre round the corner in Gwydir st is apparently telling customers not to give to the RSPCA: "because they've got loads of money and don't care about animals".

I'm sure the Channel 4 programme makers thought they were very daring and anti-establishment—it would be daring and anti-establishment to cut NHS funding (after all it's got a million times as much cash as the RSPCA) and just let sick people die, but that wouldn't make it a good idea.

Ironically Dogs Today this month is featuring the Animals Count party as "the political party that wants an NHS for dogs". It would be more useful if they hadn't done their level best to destroy the closest thing to an animals' NHS that exists, although I respect Beverley Cuddy for being willing to allow honest discussion in the comments of her articles.

Reminder: Branch AGM this Thursday

Just a reminder that the branch AGM is this Thursday, 17th June at the Friends Meeting House, Jesus Lane, Cambridge. Meeting starts at 7.30 pm. Anyone interested in the RSPCA is very welcome to attend, but only adult members of the Society can vote in the election of the committee.

If you are a member, please do try to attend as we need to have enough qualified voting members present for a valid election.

Map  below. There is parking close to the hall in the multi-story car park nearby in Park Street.

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Better to light a candle than curse the darkness...

But it is b. annoying when someone is trying to knock the matches out of your hand.

It is truly terrifying that this was apparently written by a fairly senior politician.

He says:

"Now I gather the RSPCA like other animal welfare charities receives no government funding which makes this policy change even more bizarre"

Why is it bizarre that the RSPCA needs to make choices about which animals are in greatest need because we depend on donations and fundraising instead of being able to raise income from taxes?

He says:

"we have had both cats and dogs from their branch at Radcliffe on Trent - and was never happy that they only housed animals for 7 days before putting them to sleep, but now to just shut their doors is shameful."

If he had looked at the Radcliffe's website he would have seen that many of the animals advertised for rehoming had been in their care for many months and the "only 7 days" claim is just not true. If he had bothered to read the main RSPCA website he would have seen that the RSPCA is not "shutting its doors"; we are giving the most needy animals priority so that they are guaranteed a safe place.

He seems incapable of understanding that reducing donations to the RSPCA will mean fewer animals can be helped and he has no idea that the Radcliffe home is run by volunteers, or indeed what a very large part of the RSPCA is run by volunteer trustees who are permanently worried about raising funds to carry on. Judging from his Twitter feed he doesn't see any reason at all why someone like me should be upset—after all I am only a volunteer. He doesn't appear to know or care about the very low-income families who use RSPCA clinics and hospitals for their pets.

 

It's the irresponsible, campaign mentality that's so terrifying. He really does think all he needs to do is to put enough pressure on us and we'll magically do everything he wants out of a bottomless pit of funds. I don't think it much matters which political party is in power—only that the people at the top should have experience of running something productive themselves, not predominantly campaigning.

Branch animal welfare statistics so far this year

Rehomed: 13 dogs, 23 cats, 4 rabbits and 6 miscellaneous animals.

Veterinary treatments given: 1,110 dogs, 505 cats 46 rabbits and 26 miscellaneous animals.

67 dogs and 57 cats neutered, 44 dogs and 52 cats microchipped.

Spitting tacks!

Why do people who can't afford any veterinary treatment choose to keep big dogs and breed from them without making any effort to find out beforehand whether any help is going to be available if things go wrong?

Yesterday our clinic had a phone call from an owner saying his dog couldn't stand up and he wanted one of our vets to go out to see her. The reception staff on duty persuaded him to find someone who could bring her to the clinic and fortunately he managed this before the duty vets were due to leave. It turned out that she had mastitis and high fever, which hopefully can be treated with antibiotics, but if he'd left it any later she'd very probably have died. We don't know the status of her puppies.

It's one thing if an animal has an expensive accident out of the blue, but to breed a bitch knowing that you can't afford to take her to a vet in normal surgery hours if she gets an infection and not make any effort to find out whether there is an RSPCA or PDSA clinic locally, or how to go about registering there, really takes the biscuit.

Re-homing widget

If you click the "get widget" button, you can share the widget on facebook, myspace etc. If you have accounts on any of these, please share it, so that our most recent pics of animals looking for homes are shown as widely as possible. Thank you in anticipation.

Screening prospective adopters

There's a lot of argument about how far rescue organisations should go in screening potential animal adopters. On the one hand, it's possible that good homes might be lost if the procedure drives away prospective adopters who feel it's too intrusive or if the criteria are too rigid. On the other there are a few people who are not "abusive" but who simply will not go along with reasonable safety instructions (such as keeping a new cat indoors for long enough to ensure bonding to a new house, or not letting dogs out in the street alone).

Arguably anyone who is rejected can always go out and purchase an animal, so that being excessively fussy about adopters simply denies homes to animals in need without actually saving any from incompetent owners. I'm not sure this is entirely valid, because owners who couldn't cope with a large adult dog in need of training might well not have any difficulties if they purchased a puppy belonging to a small, docile breed. If they're not capable of understanding that an adult shelter dog won't be bonded to them initially and almost certainly will run off and get lost if they simply let him out in an unfenced garden or off the lead in a public area they may be perfectly fine with a pup who more obviously needs constant attention.

Some animal rescuers may not have ideal personalities to front rehoming drives if they love animals but can't get along with people, or if they're unwilling to accept that adopters may have differing views about some aspects of caring for animals. These are the kind of people who are so obsessed with pet overpopulation and the need for neutering that they absolutely will not rehome a spayed bitch to a home with a resident dog who hasn't been castrated, or who won't believe an adopter might be telling the truth when she says she's arranged a dog-sitter to call in while she's out at work. These same people may well be the ones who are prepared to put in 80 hour weeks for the rescue and it can be very difficult and traumatic to get them to take more of a back seat with rehoming, especially if they genuinely believe that altered policies are going to result in animals they've devotedly cared for being hurt or even killed.

I think we need to discuss what is or isn't reasonable to expect of adopters. It ought to be reasonable to expect them to be normal, good, animal-loving pet owners. It probably isn't reasonable or sensible to insist that they love animals as much as those of us who've re-arranged our lives to a frankly bonkers extent in order to care for them. So, it probably is reasonable to insist that adopters should keep up vaccinations and either insure their pets or be in a position to register for treatment via the RSPCA, PDSA or Blue Cross. It isn't reasonable to insist that they should be willing to spend all their savings on veterinary treatment.

If you think a rescue organisation has unreasonable adoption policies and want to get them changed, please do a bit of research before you start.

• Are the policies actually being set by the organisation's governing body, or is a single individual being unreasonable or excessively rigid?
• Do you know for sure that lots of adopters are being rejected for no good reason, or are the complaints from isolated people?
• Does the organisation actually have suitable animals available? It may be that adopters are being turned away simply because they want a particular type (e.g. poodle) and the rescue doesn't have any.
• If you volunteer your help to improve the rate of adopting, is it accepted?

If you just dive in and start a public campaign to force the organisation to change its policies you may be doing harm by discouraging adopters and you will certainly put everyone in the organisation on the defensive. If you are wrong and the organisation isn't being unreasonable about the people it screens out, you will have diverted effort that should have been spent helping animals into countering your campaign.

The PEDIGREE Adoption Drive website includes a neat "Dog Adoption Tool" which encourages potential adopters to think through what kind of dog would fit their lifestyle.

Cheering news all round

Still short of cash but animal related things are looking up a bit. The rottie who was vomiting blood stayed in overnight on a drip and hopefully will be fit enough to go home tomorrow. Being a sizeable adult she's got much more reserves to draw on than a tiny puppy would. 

Her owner spontaneously phoned to thank us for our help and to make arrangements to pay us back, so I'll forgive him for being a royal pain for much of the morning texting me at work to find out how she was. The branch contact phone is my own mobile and while I'm at work I switch it over to our chairman who works from home so isn't disturbing other people if she takes RSPCA-related phone calls. Unfortunately this only works for voice calls, not texts, so I still get the occasional  RSPCA client whose finances are in such a state that he doesn't have enough credit on his phone to make voice calls. It's quite difficult for people to understand that the branch is run by volunteers who have their own livings to make and that we're not actually inside the veterinary hospital, so we can't give updates on animals by popping down and taking a look at them and we don't have time for hugely involved conversations.

From a personal point of view, the other major good news is that Fern's biopsy results came through today and her thyroid tumour isn't malignant. She's still got a combination of problems which will mean she'll have to be on medication for the rest of her life, but anything more drastic seems to be out at least for the moment.

Poorly rottie

Absolutely fantastic, but exhausting, flat clearance, which we finally completed at 10pm today. I just hope I am as mentally alert at 90 as the gentleman who previously owned it, as he obviously kept up his varied interests right up to the point where he went into hospital with his final illness. His collection of books and DVDs will keep both the Cambridge shops well-stocked for several months at least.

Much less welcome was a series of increasingly frantic phone calls from the owner of a rottie bitch registered at our clinic and suddenly very ill with vomiting and diarrhoea containing blood. He lives about half an hour's drive from Cambridge and doesn't have a car or any money. The lack of money was fairly moot given that no taxi firm is likely to be happy to transport a large vomiting dog. Getting a vet out to him on a Sunday would have been astronomically expensive, and probably not a solution as the dog was ill enough to need inpatient treatment which would be even more astronomically expensive done privately.

Finally organised the Pet Taxi to drive the dog to our emergency care provider on the promise that the owner will pay us back by installments. 

I do wish potential pet owners with no funds would consider the charms of the Jack Russell! At least they are portable and the majority have cast iron stomachs capable of digesting the most horrible things.

So, enormous gratitude to the family whose generosity gave us so much stock to raise the funds we so badly need today.

Another injured stray

Royston Vet Centre have just phoned to let me know that an injured stray cat was taken in to them last night on an RSPCA National Control Centre log number. He's got a broken leg and jaw, but they think the injuries are at least several days old as he's coping well and eating ravenously in spite of the jaw injury.

They scanned him for a chip and found one, but it looks as though the owner may have moved and not updated the record as there's been no response to any of the landline, mobile or email contact registered in the PetLog database. For the moment we'll have to treat him as an ordinary unowned stray and organise continuing care and fracture repair via our clinic. The Royston vets have kindly volunteered to contact other local vets in their area in case he's been transferred to another practice or possibly rehomed to another owner.

If your pets are chipped, please remember that it's essential to update your details if you move or change your mobile or email providers. If you're going on holiday for a significant length of time and leaving the cat to be fed by neighbours make sure you remain contactable in an emergency.

Whew!

All day at the shop today and a house-clearance tomorrow. Really nice people and I'm hopeful that, in combination with another generous donation of end-of line stock from Tesco, this will set the shop up for another month.

We're reaching a state in which takings are at a peak that's limited by our ability to get donated items out on the shop floor for customers to buy. It's noticeable that, although we're very busy, it tends to be the more inexpensive items that sell quickly and I think people are still being very careful about spending money. The only dearer things that seem to go are stuff that might be classed as "basics": dinner and tea services and other items that are going to be for use, not just for show.

The Saturday morning volunteers worked like Trojans and got lots of items priced and put out, but by five o'clock gaps were starting to show again. We could use at least two more volunteers to help out on Saturday afternoons; if you might be interested, please do drop in to have a chat. Making money to fund our clinic and other welfare work depends on having a continuous stream of goods going out onto the shop floor and that means we need a team of people continuously sorting, cleaning and pricing, then filling up the gaps as they appear.

How's this for Xtreme footware?

We looked them up and they are  around £200 new, and these are hardly used (it would be difficult to use them!), so we've put a price tag of £50 on them. If there's no interest in the shop then we'll eBay them.

Suits for May Balls

Why hire a suit when you can buy one for a similar amount?

Now available at our charity shop, 61 Burleigh St.

Re-reading

Re-reading Nevada Barr's Anna Pigeon series as I'm much too tired to focus on anything new.

If anyone tells you the RSPCA "doesn't do rehoming"

From our rehoming co-ordinator:

My goodness it's going beserk.

Just to keep you in the loop we have as follows:

• Ginger tom taken to Vet 24 after RTA - they spoke to Claire and because of neurological problems he's going to clinic on Saturday.

• Black tom at Arbury Rd vets which has bad pelvic injury - also to clinic on Sat.

• Fluffy black female (Maria) about 6-8 months taken to Pet Drs Burwell. I collected and have her with me at moment booked to be spayed at Lidas next week and finders are keen to adopt pending home visit

• Ginger and white nervous tom taken to pet Drs Burwell with a wound which they've treated. They say he has to come out before bank holiday weekend as no cover so I'm going to try and bring him here tomorrow. But as I have un-spayed Maria too, I will have to try to keep them a distance apart so they don't drive each other mad especially as she appears to be calling. I have him booked in next week to also be neutered at Lidas and have his staples out of his wound at same time.

The 3 new cat fosterers are now full so I've got a bit of a problem that one of them goes away sometime soon and will need her mum cat and kittens to be looked after elsewhere. Didn't really want them to go into the cattery.

West Suffolk branch did have a cat space looming that we could use but it might now be taken. If not I had a very desperate member of public who is about to move and a friend who promised to take his cat has let him down at last minute. So I have put him in touch with them to avoid our numbers getting even more inflated.

If you would like to foster or adopt a cat, please email rehoming@rspca-cambridge.org.uk

Garden Open Saturday 19th and Sunday 20th June

Many thanks to local author and garden designer Twigs Way for making us this year's charity beneficiary of her annual open garden event.

Get your May Ball gowns here!

Our shop at 61 Burleigh St. has lots of very attractive ball gowns and faux fur coats (good for those chilly June mornings!)

We'd also be glad to hear from any kind souls willing to donate gowns they no longer want.

Why we help people with veterinary treatment costs

I'm sometimes asked why we spend money helping people with the cost of veterinary treatment; the implication being that we're really just enabling owners to have more money to spend on themselves. Frankly I sometimes feel that way myself when I have conversations with owners who can't manage appointments we've set up for them because they've got holidays booked (what are those? I seem to remember having one sometime in 1982).

Unfortunately the fact that owners ought to have put at least some money aside for emergencies doesn't help an animal who needs a vet now. Most of the people we deal with genuinely don't have £100 available to spend on a visit to the emergency vet late at night, let alone another £200 or so for actual treatment. At the moment this is quite likely to mean that an animal who's been hit by a car may have to wait to see a vet at our clinic the following day as the only alternative to being put to sleep by the emergency vet with no attempt at treatment.

If our clinic wasn't there, the only alternatives would be euthanasia that night or euthanasia the following day, depending on the goodwill and ethics of the closest private vets, which might well start to run dry if it was happening every day.

As well as this, we also have to consider that the RSPCA does eventually prosecute people who neglect their animals by not taking them for veterinary treatment when it's needed. This implies that the owner can access a vet within a reasonable timespan, and for some people the only way that's going to happen is if someone else stumps up the money. When we do that we try to get the owner to pay at least something; there may be more delay than we'd like, and we may not be able to fund more than palliative care or euthanasia. What isn't acceptable is if we do nothing.