Newmarket shop's first birthday

Our shop at 10A Market Street, Newmarket opened on 14th February a year ago, and the shop manager and volunteers will be holding a celebration on the anniversary next week. 

Our local Chief Inspector, Mark Thompson, cut the ribbon for us when the shop opened, and he will be there again to mark a year's successful fundraising.

Please go along if you can to support everyone who put so much effort into keeping the project running.

The official celebration will be at 10.30 (with cake!) but your presence (buying lots of things!) will be valued throughout the day.

MANY HAPPY RETURNS, NEWMARKET!

Tacking!

As a footnote to the previous post, take a look at this list advertising Shar Pei pups for sale. Scan down the list looking for "Tacking".

Then ask yourself how we ever got to a situation where it's considered normal to breed puppies who need their facial skin held out of their eyes by tacking it as if someone was taking up the hemline of a skirt.

Born to suffer

I'd like to share a few calls to our branch helpline this week which illustrate exactly why the RSPCA's "Born to Suffer" campaign is so important. 

The first, and most disturbing, came on Sunday evening just after 10 pm. The caller had a Rough Collie puppy with acute liver disease. The pup had been given first aid and initial diagnosis by a Blue Cross animal hospital while she was away from home, and she'd been advised to go to our clinic as soon as possible. Sadly the puppy got much worse over the weekend and was in great distress by the time she called us. 

I very much doubt if he would have survived even if he'd been registered and therefore eligible to be seen by the University Vet School right away, but if our own finances hadn't been so dire I would have authorised the cost of having him put to sleep that night rather than by Wood Green the following morning.

There are a whole load of issues here: inbreeding and line breeding of pedigree dogs which increases the likelihood that they will suffer genetic disease; the ethics of commercial veterinary surgeries with no provision for emergency euthanasia to relieve suffering where an owner has no money; the responsibility of pet owners to set aside enough funds for at least minimal treatment and the responsibility of breeders once a puppy has left their ownership.

This is why we so urgently need to raise enough funds to be able to relieve suffering when no-one else will take responsibility.

The second call came today and is less awful because the puppy concerned is receiving treatment and should end up with reasonable quality of life. He's a Shar Pei and the purchaser was horrified to discover that the "weepy" eye which caused her to take him to a vet was in fact ulcerated and will need surgery to treat the deformed eyelids which are causing his eyelashes to rub and damage the eyeball itself. The surgery's likely to cost her £300-£500 and the breeder is flatly refusing to return any of the pup's purchase price to cover part of it.

Why should he have to suffer this discomfort for something that at the end of the day is simply a fad for wrinkled skin?

Haggling!

Our shop volunteers are usually a cheerful bunch who take everything in their stride, but one thing they find really stressful is customers who try to beat them down on price. 

Some of those who try this on are pretty obviously dealers, and a few of them will put on quite a lot of pressure when they think they might be able to bully an inexperienced volunteer into letting them have something for much less than it's really worth so they can later sell it on at a profit.

Quite honestly this is sometimes verging on theft—after all, the original donor gave the item to raise money to help animals, not to line someone else's pockets. It's unfair to the volunteer on the till, and if they do give way it potentially loses future donations for the shop because donors won't give worthwhile items if they know they'll be sold at stupidly low prices. Haggling also disrupts the working of the shop because it usually means the person on the till has to call the shop manager for a definite ruling, which means the manager isn't getting on with the back-room work.

In this respect the gift aid system is a bit of a mixed blessing. The way the system works means donors get regular reports on what we've managed to raise from their goods, and we've had some very positive feedback saying how nice it is to know how well the sales went. The downside is that donors will also know if the amount raised is suspiciously low. If that happens regularly they're not going to come back—and there's an underlying concern that they may be wondering if we are pilfering stock. 

The perfect Valentine's day gift?

If the man or woman in your life loves books (as well as you, of course!), why not buy an author-signed volume as a Valentine's day gift.

We have a shelf of very reasonably priced books to suit every taste, signed by authors ranging from Maeve Binchy to Sir Peter de la Billière at our bookshop at 188 Mill Road.

The shop's next open on Friday 27th January, then every Thursday, Friday and Saturday of the week: perfect for last-minute choices.

We have some wonderful new volunteers training  now and hope very soon we'll be able to open Monday and Tuesdays too.

Please display this poster if you have a suitable location

Animal Welfare Statistics for 2011

Just finished the analysis sheet for 2011 and the final totals for the Cambridge branch are:

Low cost veterinary treatments provided via our clinic:


Dogs: 2,826
Cats: 1,204
Rabbits: 107
Miscellaneous small animals: 53

Grand total: 4,190

Emergency first aid at private vets (for owned animals): 

Dogs: 38
Cats: 33

Microchipping:

Dogs: 143
Cats: 121

Animals rehomed: 

Dogs: 29
Cats: 75
Rabbits: 11
Miscellaneous small animals: 13

Grand total: 128

The number of rabbits seen at the clinic remains worryingly low considering the high availability of rabbits as pets. For the first time I began breaking down our vaccination statistics by species and it is concerning that very few rabbits seem to be vaccinated against myxomatosis. 

On the plus side, it's interesting that cats appear to have a relatively high vaccination rate - in many months nearly equal numbers of cats and dogs are vaccinated even though overall figures for attendance by dogs are more than double those of cats. Dogs appear to be microchipped more frequently than cats; possibly because chipping is viewed as a way of preventing theft rather than reuniting an injured animal with their family.

We rehomed slightly more animals than our intake during the year, enabling us to end 2011 with a slightly reduced current number of animals in care.

11 of the cats, 1 rabbit and two rats taken in had to be put to sleep on vets advice due to untreatable injuries or illness.

Cats update

The vets had a call this morning from a family whose newly spayed cat had gone missing in the area where our little injured cat was found. They drove over to view and fortunately she is their cat, so  we have a happy ending there.

No-one has enquired about the older boy yet, although the vets say he's so laid back and friendly he must have a family out there somewhere. They wired his jaw yesterday and the plan is to transfer him to a foster home tomorrow and see how he goes. He's not yet very willing to eat, which may be due to crush injuries to the delicate bones of his nasal passages impairing his sense of smell. The vets are going to give him an injectable appetite stimulant this evening and we hope he will then eat normally in the foster home. If he doesn't, we may have to bring him in to our clinic with a view to fitting him with a gastric tube so he can be fed that way.

He'll need a second operation in about six weeks to remove the wire from his jaw once it's healed.

We need to recruit more volunteer foster carers for recuperating animals. If you might be interested in this, please email rehoming@rspca-cambridge.org.uk

Update
Older boy's family have now turned up, so he'll be going home too.

Two injured cats taken in

These cats were taken in as the result of two separate road accidents. One is a middle-aged neutered male, who has a broken jaw, but we hope no more serious injuries, the other is a young female who has been recently spayed as a shaved area is still visible. She has a broken pelvis, but the vets think she will not need a repair operation although she will need at least six weeks confined to a cage to reduce stress on the damaged bone. If you think either of them may be your cat, please contact us or phone the emergency vets where they are being cared for on 0845 500 4247.

Gift Aid: Thank You Everyone!

Our Newmarket shop achieved a fantastic 40% gift-aided sales in December, meaning that we will be able to claim around £500 from HMRC. Total gift aided sales for all three shops were nearly £4,000 meaning that we are very close to achieving our initial target of raising an extra £1,000 income for the branch each month through gift aid.

Thank you to everyone who completed a form, and thank you to the staff and volunteers for putting in all the extra work involved in stickering and tagging sales items. It really is starting to pay off and help us towards our goal of maintaining as much of our animal welfare services as we possibly can.

Identifying a wheaten terrier

The Soft-Coated Wheaten Terrier Club are circulating a helpful guide on identifying Wheatens who have been neglected to an extent where it's difficult to guess their breed. I have to admit that my best guess for some of these pictures would have been a neglected Tibetan terrier or some kind of cross-breed.

Little tabby cat

We've just taken in a tabby kitten with head injuries. He's about 6 months old and has no chip or collar—he's young enough that the lack of a chip may simply mean someone was intending to get it done when he was neutered.

Sadly, he's another perfect illustration of the added complications caused by the unreasonable antipathy some people have towards the RSPCA and the way this makes sensible decision-making more difficult for us.

He may not survive, whatever we do. Head injuries are unpredictable and there's little that can be done to treat them except provide supportive care and medication to keep the patient pain-free and to reduce swelling and inflammation. 

He has a broken jaw and will need to be tube-fed, which means inserting a feeding tube under a general anaesthetic. To avoid subjecting him to two anaesthetics it makes sense to wire his jaw at the same time, although this will be wasted money if the head injuries kill him in the end. Anaesthesia always involves some risk, so it's possible that he may not survive the treatment intended to help him, but there's no way to avoid this as he can't be left without food.

Because he's so young we want to give him a chance, and if he does survive he should be easy to place in a home, even if his current owner doesn't make contact with us. However, his chances are probably not much better than 50/50 and arguably the funds needed for his treatment might be better used to help other animals. It's possible that an owner may turn up, but choose not to continue his treatment or request to sign him over to us.

Basil was not much more of a hopeful prospect when he first came in, so let us hope giving little tabby his chance was the right thing to do.

If we had opted for euthanasia and his owner then turned up, there are people out there who would have made use of the situation as propaganda to discourage donations to the RSPCA and knowing that doesn't make decision making any easier.

Sad update
Unfortunately little tabby didn't make it. He deteriorated during the night despite being given iv fluids and the vets advised that it would be wrong to attempt to put him through surgery the following day.

More freakonomics

• One of the most common reasons people give for not supporting the RSPCA is that we're not doing some task they think we ought to be—and often the reason we're not doing it is because we don't have enough support.

• The second most common reason is probably an objection to one of our campaigns (or conversely objections because the campaign isn't being pursued sufficiently vigorously!)

Update

Tony Woodley has a blog entry in the Huffington Post and the comments illustrate exactly what I mean.

Cats, Dogs and freakonomics

Freakonomics is basically about the use of ideas from economics to investigate how incentives shape the way people act—including perverse incentives that trap them into behaviour that benefits nobody, including themselves. I picked up a copy of the book in our charity shop recently, and I've been thinking about the ways in which these ideas apply to the world of animal welfare.

Lots of the issues we face are very clearly freakonomics-type problems:

• The person on very low income who buys a £2,000 puppy and doesn't have £20 to pay for vaccinations, or £55 to pay for neutering.
• Whether it's better for rescues to charge an adoption fee and lose some potential adopters, or charge nothing and risk rehoming to people who can't even afford the cost of a single veterinary consultation if the animal gets ill or injured.
• If rescues don't rehome to people who can't afford veterinary treatment, what happens when those people get animals through other channels?
• Does provision of low-cost, or free veterinary treatment for pet owners on low income mean some of them acquire more animals until they still can't afford treatment costs? What proportion of them?
• Pet owners who can't afford the cost of spaying and are then faced with the cost of a caesarian or emergency hysterectomy, which can be at least five times as expensive.
• Cat owners who put off spaying because of the cost and end up with five cats to feed instead of one.
• Pet owners who simply assume free or low-cost veterinary treatment will be available in an emergency. What proportion of pet owners does this apply to?
• Does provision of low-cost spay/neuter reduce the numbers of unwanted pets? It seems obvious that it should, but maybe it's not true for all species—for example most pet rabbits seem to be acquired from pet shops, and the primary reason for them becoming unwanted seems to be lack of knowledge about the amount of work and expense involved in keeping them. (It is very important to spay and neuter rabbits in order to be able to keep them in pairs which is vital for their individual welfare.)
• What effect does education about spaying and neutering have on the proportion of dogs and cats belonging to pedigree breeds? Are the effects the same for both species? 
• How do you avoid education replacing one problem by a different one? For example discouraging purchase of exaggerated pedigree dogs leading to a fad for crosses which may have their own problems.
• Fads for particular breeds (during my lifetime German Shepherds, Border Collies, Lurchers and now Staffordshires have all suffered the effects of excess popularity, or popularity for the wrong reasons.)
• Breeds becoming attractive to certain types of people precisely because they have a bad reputation.
• Is there a way to encourage pet owners who would otherwise be a drain on the resources of animal welfare societies to contribute by taking part in fundraising, or other useful activities, thus potentially changing a vicious circle into a virtuous one?

Update

Checking the link to the Freakonomics site, I came across this economics blog post which is horribly relevant to the problem of the family with maxed-out credit cards and a sick pet who won't make it through Christmas without treatment.

Clinic opening hours over the holiday

Tuesday 27th Dec: Closed
Wednesday 28th Dec: Closed
Thursday 29th Dec: OPEN
Saturday 31st Dec: Closed

The emergency out of hours service will be available throughout the holiday period - please phone the contact number on your registration card.

Basil off to his new home

Excellent news for Basil the little terrier who was found with terrible injuries to his front legs some weeks ago. Not only has he made an almost complete recovery, but he has a beautiful new home for Christmas.

All the family members are adults, so Christmas is a fairly quiet occasion for them and there should be no problems settling Basil in during the festive season.

The rather large plastic collar is to stop Basil licking at the scab on his right leg and he should be able to do without it fairly soon.

Late Night Shopping

As an experiment, we're going to open our shop at 61 Burleigh Street for late night shopping every Wednesday from 5-8 pm until Christmas.

Crossed fingers for good results.

We have lots of beautiful RSPCA cards and calendars, as well as plenty of items that would make really unusual presents - anyone interested in an antique earthenware hot water bottle?

Or a limited edition print of a racing car signed by Damon Hill.

A glimpse into the canine underworld

We've been concerned about the large numbers of animals being advertised on "Gumtree" and similar sites for a long time, and a call I took over the weekend gave me a very nasty insight into what can happen.

The caller wanted to find out whether the RSPCA could prosecute a man who bought a dog from him, and had the dog put down as dangerous within a few days of the transaction. Of course this wouldn't be possible because it's not illegal to have a vet put an animal to sleep—it's illegal to cause an animal to suffer, but not to kill.

If all the details of the story are correct, it appears that the purchaser changed his mind about wanting the dog, and possibly expected to be able to get his money back in order to buy a puppy (also, incidentally of a "status" breed). The seller couldn't have taken the dog back as his original reason for selling was friction with an existing dog (although he seems to have several other dogs and I wonder whether he is also breeding). He does appear to have left the purchaser a contact number when he sold the dog and offered to try to help solve any problems.

Background details of the various dogs involved are complicated, but there appears to be a whole ecosystem of people breeding dogs at home. Their motivation is probably a combination of the attraction of "cash in hand" income and a fairly genuine interest in dogs as a hobby. I wonder how much of it is driven by a desire to find a substitute for meaningful work that they can take pride in and whether an improvement in the job market would make things better.

An awful lot of dogs seem to be traded around like so many packets of sugar, with not much common sense about the presence of small children, or suitable facilities. Against this background our messages about not getting animals you can't afford to care for probably aren't going to make very much of an impact. 

The people we're trying to persuade are being lectured all the time—don't drink so much, don't smoke, eat more fruit, lose weight ... it's not hard to see why they're not going to pay attention to us.

Pics from Mill Road Winter fair 2011

Ben (in the dog suit) got rather too hot, while poor Pat was frozen running the tombola outside the shop for most of the afternoon. Grand total raised was £354.91, £22.86 of this from  the collecting boxes, just over £50 from the tombola and the rest from shop sales.

It just goes to prove that this shop can make money if we can only persuade people to realise we are here and come in.

Many of the people who visited on Saturday said how impressed they were by the shop and the interesting books available and that they hadn't realised we had a shop here (this roughly ten years after we first opened!)

We need more volunteers so that we can open six days a week. If you might be interested, please call in on a Saturday, drop in at our larger shop at 61 Burleigh street, or email info@rspca-cambridge.org.uk

6 am this morning...

Yet another call from the purchaser of a new puppy that's now very ill. At six weeks old the pup is too young to leave the mother and the seller very obviously did not tell the truth when he said it had been wormed as pup is passing huge quantities of them as well as bloody diarrhoea.

The RSPCA has an online guide with useful tips about getting a puppy to help prospective adopters avoid some of the pitfalls.