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: 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!

Priorities again

Events over the past few weeks once again demonstrate how difficult it is to prioritise in a straightforward way.

Nathan, an apparently young, fit cat who was recovering well, suddenly deteriorated and developed uncontrollable fits which didn't respond to medication. 

Saffron, much older, but with someone willing to donate towards the cost of her care turned out not only to have nerve damage and early kidney disease which made it probable that she wouldn't survive an operation on her pelvic injuries, but also positive for FIV.

Conversely, some of the very old cats are now doing well on relatively cheap treatment by medication.

Looking at our situation in a more general way: someone looking at our expenditure with no extra information would almost certainly say we can run our rehoming program or our clinic but not both. 

What that basic income and expenditure sheet doesn't show is that, if we closed the clinic, the rehoming program would almost immediately be overwhelmed by people wanting to give up animals because they couldn't care for them. If we closed our rehoming program, we would be closing the part of our activities which the majority of our donors want to support. Quite reasonably, a lot of them wonder why they should subsidise other people to keep pets they can't afford.

Essentially the rehoming program and the provision of veterinary help are complimentary to one another. We need to be able to say to someone who either can't or won't pay anything for their animal's treatment that we will help the animal by providing treatment and rehoming but we won't provide free treatment with no contribution from the owner. We ALSO need to be able to say to owners who are meeting us half-way that we will help them to keep their animals. 

And to to do all that there is no substitute for the long slog of fundraising. Please support our ten point plan to keep our clinic open. 

Just five minutes completing a gift aid form if you donate items for sale means we will raise an extra 25p for every pound the items sell for.

Spread the word about our animals who need new homes

Roxy is looking for a home

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

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

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

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

Can anyone offer a home to Charlie?

Charlie was handed in to the police and was  going to be put down because his 7 days were up, so we were asked to take him on.

He's a Staffordshire cross, but gets on well with other dogs. 

There's more information about him on our Rehoming Gallery.

UPDATE: Just to remove any misunderstanding; we stepped in to SAVE Charlie—the 7 day time limit is the statutory length of time a local authority is required to pay kennelling fees for unowned dogs. Once this time limit is up a dog may be passed on to a rescue organisation (us in this case), rehomed directly, or put to sleep.

Another action-packed Saturday, and not in a good way

Day started at 5.20 am with a call from a clinic client whose cat was in labour. At least she was responsible enough to have got the cat registered, so it was possible to ask one of the night-duty vets to give her an advice call back. Judging from my side of the call I think mother cat was probably OK, but I suspect the kitten she'd had trouble delivering probably had some kind of congenital malformation and didn't make it.

Usual morning routine of washing cat dishes and bleaching litter trays, then to the shops to do the banking and on to Arbury Court greengrocer's shop to exchange their collecting tin. THANK-YOU to all the customers and staff who fill it reliably as clockwork every three months!

The view heading towards Arbury over the river

Nearly there when the mobile went off with a caller who didn't know his dog was pregnant until she had puppies two days ago. Two of them had died in the meantime, and the bitch was now so poorly that he didn't think she'd survive the weekend without treatment. Considering that she must have been ill first thing, WHY couldn't he have phoned three hours earlier when our clinic would still have been open? Finally agreed to cover first aid at a private vet (which we'll try to get him to pay back) and told him to get her down to our clinic on Tuesday, if she survives.

Got into the greengrocer and it rang again; this time an elderly gentleman with equally elderly Westie who IS registered at the clinic and had had a fit. Took their details and asked for him to be given a call-back from one of the vets to discuss if she ought to be seen that day as an emergency. Life would be a lot easier if all pet owners were more like him. At least the people in the shop had an opportunity to see their donations in action.

Back for some lunch, then to the shop for the rest of the afternoon. Either Bettina or Anne has used her initiative and produced a home-made A-board to increase our visibility.

Busy putting out more donations to fill up gaps as items sell, but hampered by ongoing phone discussion about a mystery cat with a bad leg, which seems to have been signed over to us for rehoming, but nobody knows why or who authorised this. Unfortunately it looks as though it is definitely Our Problem, so Janine will arrange collection and transfer to the kennels. The bad leg has apparently improved with no treatment other than metacam (for pain and inflammation).

Pretty vase donated to the shop this week

I knew it!

More black propaganda from people who will not have to pick up the pieces if we go under.

When we got the original circular from HQ asking us not to include "beauty" classes in any official RSPCA fun dog shows I must admit I was apprehensive that it could be used against us. Of course if we did run classes where "cute" appearance was the main criterion, that could be used against us too. 

I'm not entirely convinced that the real problem with show dogs is judging by appearance so much as judging by distorted ideas of what is desirable appearance.

This picture is a modern Basset hound. 

This is one from 1915.

The older dog is much less exaggerated and has more normal back legs and less folded facial skin. That's no guarantee that he didn't have ectropion or any of the other ills that plague some  pedigree breeds, but I can't help thinking that selecting for dogs that looked more similar to him would be likely to improve the general fitness of Bassets.

I'm afraid we are seeing a pattern here.

The RSPCA is fundamentally a charity which provides services for animals (welfare law enforcement, veterinary treatment, rehoming etc.) and also campaigns on issues which affect animal welfare.

It's the services which make the campaigns credible: people with frontline experience of animal welfare work are likely to know what they're talking about and people who are putting unpaid effort into practical ways of improving animals' lives must genuinely care about animal welfare. The size and unified nature of the RSPCA probably impresses politicians with the likelihood that we're backed by substantial numbers of citizens with votes, but to some extent that's a secondary consideration.

Because of this credibility, virtually any person or organisation which wants to affect animal issues (whether to achieve change or prevent it) sees the RSPCA as a gatekeeper: government is likely to believe us if we say there really is a welfare problem, but it will also believe us if we say things are more complicated than other animal campaigners think. Many people who genuinely care about animals but have an overwhelming concern for one area, such as animal experiments, or factory farming, see us as the only thing which is stopping them from succeeding, because we're not giving unqualified support to whatever it is they want.

Add on those, like the kennel club, or foxhunters who see us as the organisation with enough clout to stop them going on doing what they like, and the result is that threats to our ability to provide the welfare services are used as blackmail to change the welfare policy. This is the, "I'll never give the RSPCA another penny and I'll tell all my friends unless you .... (abolish fox-hunting, bring back fox-hunting, say pedigree dogs are healthy, say pedigree dogs should be abolished—fill in the blank to taste)" route.

On top of this, we're never going to be able to provide the service level many of the public expect, so we have a constant background of genuine complaints plus spurious ones from people who are aware that the most effective way to strike at the RSPCA is to hit our ability as a service provider. None of this is helpful when we need to recruit volunteers to work at the fairly mundane jobs that are essential to keeping the services going.

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.

RSPCA Birmingham Animal Centre

Birmingham is a large centre run by RSPCA HQ, but the basic problems of rehoming animals are applicable to all RSPCA groups

Rabbits in urgent need

The Rabbit Residence rescue in Hertfordshire, the Mayhew Animal Rescue in London and the RSPCA are looking to rehome 18 rabbits in urgent need of rehoming from a 'city farm' in London.  All of the rabbits will be checked over by the Mayhew's vets, however, unfortunately both the Mayhew and the Rabbit Residence are absolutely full at the moment so the rabbits have nowhere to go.

If anybody could provide a good home for any of these rabbits then please do get in touch with Caroline at the Rabbit Residence. Her number is 07904 397378, and her email is rabbit_residence@hotmail.com

The best way to contact Caroline is by text or email. All the rabbits will be checked over by the Mayhew's vets, and, if necessary, they can be transported to anybody who can provide a good home. It would also be a great help if anyone was able to adopt some of the rabbits currently at the Mayhew or Rabbit Residence in order to free up space so that others can come in. 

Some of the rabbits currently with Rabbit Residence can be viewed in their rehoming gallery. There is also information about the correct conditions for keeping rabbits on the website.

Update on the St Bernards

It sounds as if the response to the appeal to rehome the St Bernards is going really well. The Northants Evening Telegraph reports that the dedicated number (0300 123 8000) set up to answer enquiries about adopting one of them has already had over 3,000 calls. Even if less than 10% have suitable facilities for such large dogs, it looks as if all of them are going to find homes with no more waiting.

Let's hope that some of the callers who don't adopt a St Bernard will consider some of the other thousands of dogs who also need homes—some of them very much less challenging to care for simply because they're a more manageable size.

News on the 101 St Bernards

I wasn't planning to write about this as we don't have any of the dogs in our branch facilities for rehoming, but there doesn't seem to have been much coverage on the local media because of all the other newsworthy things that are going on, so I'll put up the details from the press release.

The RSPCA is appealing to people living in the East region who can offer a new home to one of more than 100 St Bernards which were removed from kennels in Northamptonshire in December 2008*.

Since then the dogs have been cared for in private boarding kennels on behalf of the RSPCA. However, as they remained the property of their owner, the Society was unable to rehome them.

Now ownership of the St Bernards has been signed over to the RSPCA and so good new homes can be sought.

The dogs are being rehomed in small groups through various RSPCA animal centres. Priority will be given to potential owners who live nearest to where the dogs are currently being cared for to limit how far they will have to travel to their new homes. In the east region, priority will be given to people living in Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Cambridgeshire, Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Norfolk, Northamptonshire, Oxfordshire and Nottinghamshire. However, enquiries from other areas will still be taken.

People who would like one of the dogs - or to donate to the RSPCA to help it continue its vital work - are asked to call 0300 123 8000. (Please, don't use any other RSPCA numbers if it is busy as very high profile rescues have blocked emergency veterinary contact lines in the past, putting sick animals at risk.)

St Bernards are large dogs and, as these particular animals have lived in kennels all their lives, they are not used to walking on leads and have not been house trained. They will need experienced homes where there is a reasonably large amount of space. They will also need regular grooming.

Paul Williams, RSPCA animal welfare manager in the RSPCA’s east region, said: “These dogs will need special care and patience. They all have good temperaments but their kennel background means that they will need owners with the knowledge and time to help them settle into their new homes.

“So far caring for these St Bernards has cost the RSPCA around £100,000 and all donations, however big or small, will be gratefully received. If you would like to rehome one of the dogs or make a donation so we can continue to care for animals like these, please call us on 0300 123 8000.”

The majority of the dogs range in age from two years to eight years and older and should make very loyal and rewarding pets for those able to give them the care they desperately need.

Please note that a donation will be required in return for rehoming one of the dogs which helps cover the cost of their neutering, vaccinations, microchipping and veterinary check.

* The total number of St Bernards rose from 101 to 106 when puppies were born after the dogs were taken into the RSPCA’s care.

• RSPCA animal centres have already found a few of the dogs good new homes.

• Possible criminal proceedings are ongoing and for this reason we are unable to discuss the original condition of the dogs or how they were kept.

Separation anxiety and rescue dogs

Probably the most frequent cause for rescued dogs being returned after an unsuccessful placement is separation anxiety. This is one reason why we are usually strict about not rehoming to owners who will need to leave their dogs for very long periods. Many rescue dogs are very anxious that their new owner will disappear and not return — after all their previous owner did just that from the dog's point of view. However all of us need to be able to go out sometimes on errands where we can't be accompanied by our pets, so new owners need to be forewarned that this may be a problem and prepared to take action to cope.

One useful tool is a dog crate. This should not degenerate into a prison where your dog is locked up for hours on end, but it does provide a way to keep him safe and your posessions undamaged, while you train him to be less anxious. Properly used, the crate will become a den area where your dog feels secure; knows you will return; can rest comfortably and knows he will have some special toys that he does not have access to anywhere else. If distress at being separated from you causes your dog's house-training to be erratic, a crate lined with newspapers and standing on a washable floor will make cleaning up not too unpleasant.

There is some advice about training to relieve separation anxiety on the dog club site. It may also help (preferably before you acquire your rescue dog) to read some of the books which have been written about adopting a rescue dog, such as Understanding the Rescue Dog, Living with a rescued dog, or Second Chance: living with a rescued dog.

Still time to register for a place on the home-visitor's training day

Val from RSPCA Regional Headquarters will be carrying out the training which gives a really helpful overview of the homevisiting procedure. Janine will add to this where she can to show how the info is specifically put into practice in our region.

Homevisits we carry out are for our own branch animals (kept in a boarding  facility or foster homes) and also for other RSPCA branches or Headquarters  centres where people within our branch territory have found an animal they want  from further afield.

Our branch has drawn up checklists of the information we aim to obtain on  our homevisits. These used to be filled in & given to the homing co-ordinator. Nowadays, we don't tend to bother as it's quicker to give the results by phone or email. However, they do provide a useful reminder list and some visitors like to fill them in to keep for their own records.  

Ideally a follow up visit should be done a few weeks after the animal is adopted (usually by the same person that does the pre-adoption visit). So the forms provide a useful aid to refresh your mind on the details of the home before the follow up.

In addition to the training day, we try to take new homevisitors on a few visits with us (usually 2 cat and 2 dog ones) — before they go on visits alone. Although this is ideal, we always have a big problem, being such busy people and spread out over a large region, liasing with each other and the homeowner to organise these very quickly. Thus there tends to be a long delay getting our valuable new volunteers up and running. We would really appreciate any ideas on how this can be improved. Maybe not everyone needs to do four  visits with us. 

If you would like to book a place on the training day (Sunday 1st March, at Cherry Hinton Village Centre, Colville Road, Cherry Hinton), please email rehoming@rspca-cambridge.org.uk

Rehoming Gallery

Just to flag up that we've now switched our rehoming pictures entirely over to the blogger format, which looks nicer and is probably easier for most people to read. You should be able to use the labels on the right to select particular classes of animals to view—for example clicking the "cats" label will show just cats available for adoption. We're still experimenting with tags, so any comments on what you find most helpful would be appreciated.

Yet another collar wound

Another cat with a collar injury. Her owner contacted us wanting her rehomed because she'd returned after being missing for some time and in the meanwhile the owner had got a dog and no longer had space for a cat as well. I suspect this wasn't the whole story as she'd taken the cat for first aid at one of the Huntingdon vets, and they would have warned her the wound would need stitching under anaesthetic.

Huntingdon is outside our branch area so we referred her to Block Fen who have their own on-site vet for animals admitted for rehoming.

Update on Santa

Hallelujah!

The wound flap has closed up except for a very small area at the lowest point (where all the pus and gunk was draining). He still needs to have it monitored and dressings changed daily, but a student has offered to take him home for a trial period. Hopefully by the end of next week he may be ready to go to his permanent adoptive home. As some of the healing is by "granulation," which is the formation of scar tissue, he may be left with some permanent lack of flexibility, but they're now confident that he'll live.

This just serves to demonstrate what terrible damage a rigid, unbreakable collar can do to a cat. This was a flea collar, and it probably didn't have any beneficial effect in killing fleas, but it very nearly killed poor Santa. As it didn't carry any identity tag it didn't even serve any useful function in linking him to his previous owner.

Update on Nicholas

As you can see from the photos, his confidence has come on by leaps and bounds. He's still slightly nervous of my own cats (can be beaten up by little Fern who must weigh about a quarter of what he does), but he's stopped hiding.

Once the weather improves I'm thinking of moving him down to the cattery to see how he behaves there as its much easier to rehome from somewhere where people can have a choice of cats to view.

Home-visitors' training day

We'll be holding a training day for volunteers interested in becoming branch home-visitors on 22nd February, at the Block Fen animal centre.

Home visitors are a crucial element in responsible animal rehoming, as they make it possible to reduce the number of unsuccessful placements which break down and lead to animals being returned. We're not trying to catch prospective adopters out, but by visiting them in their homes before an animal goes out we can ensure as far as possible that they understand what they're taking on and don't have misconceptions about what can be expected from the animal they've selected.

If you might be interested in attending, please email rehoming@rspca-cambridge.org.uk. There are plenty of places available and the role playing part of the course works best with fairly large groups, so don't worry if you think you might be interested but aren't certain whether it's right for you.