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.

The veterinary treatment crisis goes on...

Wood Green Animal Shelters are trying to publicise the dire situation of animals whose owners have no means of paying for necessary treatment:

Wood Green, The Animals Charity is being forced to turn away more than 14 pets in need of veterinary care every week because their owners have neglected to insure them.

The Charity is receiving daily requests to treat issues including broken legs, jaws, ear infections, skin disorders and dental problems of dogs, cats and rabbits because pet owners cannot afford the treatment.

We had a call this morning from someone in Sawtry (sadly well outside our clinic catchment area) who'd been given our details by Wood Green in the desperate hope that we could do something to help them, and another request via the shelter for help with neutering.

A collie was abandoned at another vet, almost certainly because her owners knew they couldn't possibly pay the cost of her treatment.

Personally I am haunted by some of the calls I've received where owners beg and plead for us to help their pets.

The bottom line is that we can't put the existence of our clinic at risk to help people who could have saved their pets by taking the minimal action of getting them registered and therefore making them eligible for low-cost out of hours treatment from our own veterinary provider.

Our of hours emergency treatment at private vets is now hugely expensive and we simply cannot currently afford even the comparatively small (£100-£150!) cost of emergency euthanasia if we're going to end up paying it two or three times each week.

Before we can consider reinstating help of any kind at private vets we have to raise enough funds to be certain of the clinic's long-term viability, and that means we have to build a proper fundraising team.

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

We're now gearing up for RSPCA week, which is our single biggest fundraising event of the year, when we have permission to collect outside all 7 major Tesco stores in our branch area. Every extra person willing to give a couple of hours to collect means £20-£40 raised to help suffering animals.

Please consider whether you can spare those hours this year.

Reactions to "Pedigree Dogs Exposed: Three Years on"

Pledge 2: saving homeable animals

Mention pet over-population and most people imagine huge numbers of healthy animals being put to sleep. The reality is different; at least in this country.

Animal shelters are under extreme pressure to take in more and more unwanted animals, but a lot of the time this is not straightforwardly because owners have lost interest (or, viewed more charitably, can no longer cope because of changes in their circumstances).

Many strays come into rescue because they are ill or injured and frequently the reason why an owner cannot cope is inability to fund veterinary treatment.

To live up to the pledge of saving all potentially rehomeable animals we do need to reduce the numbers of animals bred and taken on by people who are never going to be able to afford proper care, or who could cope with a few animals but not with five or six. The real crux, though, is to achieve a situation where we can always give owners of treatable pets the option of having them signed over to be treated and rehomed, or support to keep their animals if they are prepared to work with us to pay at least part of the cost.

The Five Pledges: Pledge 1

Please help us to raise funds so that our branch can continue to support this pledge by providing low-cost neutering, micro-chipping and veterinary care to the local community.

Pics from the Newmarket shop's 1st anniversary

Unfortunately Chief Inspector Mark Thompson was called away to an incident so was unable to attend the anniversary. However the customers, staff and volunteers thoroughly enjoyed it, including a fantastic cake baked by a local confectioner's shop.

This was the first time I'd had an opportunity to see the shop in action and I was very impressed by the way Lorna and her team have made use of every inch of sales space. This is essential as the Market St. shop has lots of storage in its basement, but a very compact sales area which depends on keeping a constant flow of items to fill up as donations are sold.

The cake!

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!