Congratulations to Hunts and March Branch

The Hunts and March Branch of the RSPCA opened its new charity shop on Market Hill, St Ives on Monday.

The branch has spent years looking for suitable premises and will now be turning its attention to another outlet in St Neots.

Trustee and manager Jane Newbery said: "Due to the escalating costs of animal welfare the St Ives shop will be a welcome addition for the branch." There are many ways you can help the branch and its new shop – call 01480 467 497.

Back to the Future

The Federation of Woodland Egg Producers seem to be replicating something very similar to the conditions on the early 20th Century Chivers farms. 

• Planted with trees which cover at least 20% of the range
  
• The trees are a mixture of fast growing and slower native trees which are indigenous to the local area
  
• The trees are planted close to the house to encourage the hens outside to range
  
• All farms are audited and approved by the RSPCA and conform to the RSPCA Freedom Food standard
  

Maybe this is the way to go to maintain standards in a time of financial hardship. Planting trees in areas which would otherwise be either grass or bare ground is a potential way of soaking up CO2 and eventually producing wood for fuel or construction, and the dual use of land answers the objection to free range that there is not enough available land to produce all the eggs needed to supply the consumer.

Organic fertiliser free to anyone willing to collect

If anyone in the South Cambs. or N. Herts area could make good use of some manure (and is willing to collect it) Rabbit Residence Rescue would be delighted to hear from you, as their muck heap is growing and it costs money if they have to get it taken away by a contractor.

Strewth!

I've now got a new branch cheque book, so I can set the ball rolling to open an investment account with a local building society. 

The most straightforward logistics to achieve this seem to be for me to post out the application form to our Rehoming Co-ordinator (so she can fill in her details as Second Applicant).

She then posts the form on to our Branch Secretary.

Meanwhile I write out a cheque for the opening deposit and take it round to the Secretary for her counter-signature. She can also counter-sign the cheque for the deposit with the Co-Operative Bank at the same time.

Once she has the cheque, form and a copy of our Branch Rules, she takes them down to her local branch of the building society together with her ID.

And once that's been done, the Rehoming Co-ordinator can call in at the building society to prove who she is.

Meanwhile we need to take a copy of the signed minutes of this month's committee meeting and send it to the building society to prove we really did decide to open an account.

RSPCA Prosecutions

I came across the RSPCA's evidence to the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs' inquiry into the draft Animal Welfare Bill and I think it's worth quoting some of the detailed explanation of how the RSPCA Inspectorate and the Prosecutions Department go about investigating cruelty complaints. 

The passage into law of the Animal Welfare Act doesn't significantly change the way this works, although it has made it possible to intervene earlier where animals are being kept in unsuitable conditions. The transcript of the oral evidence puts it into one huge paragraph, so I've spaced it out to make it a bit more readable. 

If you page through the whole of the original source, you'll see some explanation of the Society's branch structure in relation to the Inspectorate (scroll down to find it), and some statistics on conviction rates which are relevant to the File on 4 allegations:

Mr Flower (RSPCA Superintendant Prosecutions dept.): Yes. All of the prosecutions launched by the RSPCA are as a private prosecutor. If the Bill becomes law that position will not change. We will still be a private prosecutor. You are probably aware that, although the Crown Prosecution Service was set up in 1985, the law specifically provided and allowed the preservation of the rights for private prosecutions to continue, and we are a private prosecutor. 

The way our inspectors work at the moment to bring about private prosecutions is this: generally we receive a large number of complaints alleging the cruel treatments of animals from the public—last year it was in the region of 105,000. 

Our inspectors investigate all of those complaints; they check on the welfare of the animals; they try and determine whether an offence may have been committed. In investigating complaints our inspectors require the co-operation of animal owners because the RSPCA inspectors have no statutory powers, so if an inspector wants to see an animal he is invited into the premises by the owner. 

If the inspector believes that an offence may have been committed because he is confronted with an animal in a very poor condition, then he will strive to take the animal to a veterinary surgeon for examination because we rely on the veterinary surgeon to provide evidence that the animal has been caused to suffer. 

If an owner is not co-operative and will not allow an inspector access or the removal of an animal, then we are obliged to enlist the assistance of the police, because the police do have certain powers under current law in relation to arrest and seizure of items of evidence, but we only need to call on the police in very limited circumstances. 

If the inspector then has evidence that there is a potential offence and the opinion of the veterinary surgeon is that the animal has suffered, the inspector will then proceed to investigate with a view to compiling a file of evidence. This will comprise witness statements, expert evidence, photographs, and the owner of the animal will be given the opportunity to be interviewed. 

The interview is conducted in accordance with the provisions of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act, so the accused is cautioned and advised that they have the opportunity to seek legal advice before speaking. They are also told that they have the opportunity to have their animal examined by a veterinary surgeon of their choice in order that they have the opportunity to have an alternative opinion on the state of the animal. This is all done partly to comply with statutory provision, and partly to be fair to the accused. 

Once the investigation is completed the file of evidence is sent to the Prosecutions Department. There are five staff there who assess all of the cases that arise in England and Wales. The Prosecutions Department adheres to the provisions of the code for crown prosecutors when assessing the file of evidence. There are two principal tests, as you probably know. 

One is that there must be sufficient evidence to make a conviction more likely than an acquittal if the case is prosecuted, and there must also be a public interest in prosecuting, and all of the decisions that the RSPCA makes with regard to prosecution are based on those criteria. 

Although we are probably one of the biggest private prosecutors, prosecution is a very small part of our inspectorate's work. I mentioned that last year inspectors investigated about 105,000 complaints. The number of cases submitted to Prosecutions Department was about 1,400. Of that 1,400 we prosecuted about 700-800—about 50%, so I think this demonstrates that we are not, as some people may suggest, just out to secure convictions at all cost. 

We assess cases carefully and we apply the appropriate tests before we prosecute. That is why our prosecution numbers are so low. Although we are careful with our prosecutions, we do have a very high success rate. Last year the number of convictions we secured from our prosecutions was about 96% which is a significant success rate. 

I believe another criticism that may have been levelled is the fact that there is no form of accountability as far as our prosecutions are concerned. I think the example was cited that the police investigate offences but the Crown Prosecution Service decides whether to proceed and that is some sort of safeguard, but the position of the RSPCA is no different from any other non police prosecutor. There are plenty of them, from British Rail to British Waterways, TV licensing and local authorities will occasionally prosecute, but the CPS do not have responsibility for assessing cases brought by non police prosecutors. 

If a suggestion is made that RSPCA cases should go to the CPS to be assessed then that is a misleading suggestion because the CPS does not have the authority to prosecute for anyone other than the police. The position of private prosecutions was considered in 1998 by a Law Commission report and that concluded that there were adequate safeguards in place to ensure the right to bring private prosecution is not abused. Those sort of safeguards include the DPP having a right to intervene [if a prosecution has been brought inappropriately].

Heartwarming

Really nice letter today from the family who adopted Maddison, one of the four German Shepherds, (not just because of the very kind enclosure):

"Please accept the enclosed cheque with our gratitude for allowing us to adopt Maddison. She has settled in incredibly well and won our hearts very easily. My other dog Chance adores her also because she will play with him continuously. When we lost Ziggy we thought our hearts would never heal, Maddison has proved us wrong"

Winter Fair 2008 on Mill Road

We'll be taking part in the Mill Road Winter Fair again this year, so look out for our tombola (outside the shop at 188 Mill Road) and book stall (location tba) if you're in the area on 6th December.

If you might be able to help with either of the stalls, please email camshop@rspcabookshop.co.uk. The book stall is usually under cover, but the tombola is in the area in front of the shop, so we'd like to have enough helpers to give people a chance to have a break and get warm.

Entitlement culture

Long argument with a caller who disagreed with the amount she was charged at our clinic and grandly claimed that, "it's the law that disabled owners can't be charged if their pets need veterinary treatment". 

It is not.

Vets have an ethical obligation to relieve animal suffering under the terms of the oath they swear when they qualify. Unfortunately this doesn't translate into unlimited free treatment for owners who can't afford to pay. If an animal is actually in the surgery and is in pain, no vet will refuse to relieve this, and most will in fact bend over backwards to avoid euthanasia, but at the end of the day vets have to charge an economic fee in order to stay in business.

The PDSA have a strict policy to determine who is poor enough to qualify for help and they limit help to no more than one or two animals per owner. The people who meet their criteria do receive very generous help. 

We have a more flexible approach, but this means our help is spread more thinly and owners are expected to pay at least a third of what the treatment would cost at a private vet. This isn't an entitlement: if our funds run out we can't demand that the government tops them up.

This was a basically good owner (she did seek treatment and she did pay up) who had acquired more animals than she could afford in the belief that if things went wrong someone else would have to deal with it. 

The next step down the scale is the owner who essentially gives up and says, "The vet won't see my pet because I owe them money," and then doesn't do anything about getting treatment. In their mind it's now the vet who is responsible if the animal suffers. 

The New Hedgehog book

The New Hedgehog Book, by Pat Morris, is absolutely charming, but also packed with useful information about hedgehogs and what is known about their natural history and behaviour. Until his retirement, Pat Morris was a wildlife researcher and academic, but this is definitely not a coldly scientific view, and readers will be delighted by his evident fondness for his spiky research subjects — to the point of abandoning both clothing and objectivity and diving to the rescue when one of them was in imminent danger of a watery grave. 

Without overwhelming readers with information The Hedgehog book gives enough knowledge to enable them to provide real assistance to any wandering hogs which they may come across. It will also promote understanding of the point at which well-meaning help can turn into something that merely prolongs the process of dying if the would-be rescuer doesn't recognise their limitations.

Some aspects of this popular mammal remain surprisingly mysterious. Create a feeding station for stray cats and you'll end up with lots of cats. This doesn't seem to apply to hedgehogs: you may think there are a lot, but it turns out that you may simply have created a drop-in centre for hedgehogs from an astonishingly large area, rather than increasing the number living in your own garden. Food supply doesn't seem to be the critical limiting factor and we don't really know what is, although there are suspicions that tidier, smaller gardens with more fencing and fewer deciduous trees are bad news. 

The book provides an update on the controversy over hedgehogs on Uist and explains why RSPCA wildlife hospitals (like our local East Winch) place so much emphasis on measuring survival rates of treated animals after release to the wild. Careful follow-up of translocated hedghogs was able to demonstrate it was incorrect that removing hedgehogs and releasing them elsewhere was inhumane, and (to their credit) Scottish Natural Heritage were prepared to change their policy in response to the evidence.

The BBC has a video of another hedgehog tagging survey in action. 

Continuing saga of the dog with the prolapse

She had her surgery last Wednesday but my sigh of relief was a bit premature. Owner phoned yesterday afternoon to say she was very dull and not eating or drinking. Unfortunately, because we got the op. done by the private Clarendon Street vet (as her owner didn't have any way to get to the Madingley road site) and it was now the weekend, the closest available cover was the 24 hour vet at Milton. Managed to arrange for her to be taken there, and fortunately it seems she's simply uncomfortable because of the double operation (to replace the prolapse and spay her to stop it happening again). This morning she's gone back home on stronger pain-killers and the vets say she's bright and lively.

Very relieved, as, although vaginal prolapse looks horrible, it's not actually life-threatening or hugely painful (although it's probably pretty uncomfortable). I would have felt really bad if we'd pushed the owner to get the operation done and the bitch hadn't survived.

Fingers and toes crossed that nothing else happens.

NB: this is why I need to have a mobile phone. MI5 are welcome to listen in, but they would be very bored after a bit.

Going down the tube fast...

If this turns out to be true, I'm not going to be able to replace the branch emergency contact mobile phone either - it's an elderly pre-payment Nokia mainly used by me to provide a means for clinic patients to contact us for veterinary help outside normal working hours. It's also the most convenient way to provide a 24/7 branch contact for emergency help with the cost of seeing a private vet. Bother, bother, bother.

Horses of the Storm and Pawprints of Katrina

Horses of the Storm and Pawprints of Katrina are more accounts of the animal rescue operations which followed the Hurricane Katrina disaster in Louisiana.

Horses is mainly focussed on the efforts of the staff, students and volunteers of Louisiana State University's equine veterinary department and concentrates on the particular problems of rescuing horses and mules (although the LSU workers also saved a variety of other livestock and smaller domestic animals). Probably due to Ky Mortensen's professional position as a staff member of the University, Horses is less emotional than either Rescued or Pawprints and may therefore be more in tune with British tastes.

Pawprints concentrates on the work of Best Friends Animal Society and the emergency animal refuge which it set up to receive pets rescued from the flooded areas of New Orleans (the author, Cathy Scott, has a blog on Amazon.com). Pawprints is more of a collection of heart-warming stories, than a detailed analysis, like Rescued, and if you're looking for "lessons learned", then Rescued is probably the better buy.

One common theme in all three books is the absolutely vital importance of micro-chipping as a method of permanent animal identification which cannot be lost and poses no risk. The second major lesson is preparedness: animals whose owners were organised to leave the danger area with them had the best chance of survival, but even the small amount of time needed to release horses from tethers and stalls was enough to give them a better chance of reaching safety by swimming. Horses has a fairly detailed appendix on emergency preparedness for horse-keepers, much of which would also be applicable to the UK.

What a complicated fortnight

Eight week old kitten (uninjured, but too small for our normal "if it's uninjured and healthy, leave it alone" rule) taken into Vet24 over the weekend. In the meantime, Fountain, one of the two kittens being fostered with a view to adoption, developed a runny nose and we organised transport so he could go to a vet on Monday. By then he was fine, but of course the transport volunteer couldn't alter all her other arrangements to collect the Vet24 kitten. 

Re-arranged transport to get her to the kennels today — by which time the vets had managed to find someone who wanted to adopt her anyway. Excellent news, apart from messing the poor transport person about again, as we really don't like holding young animals in kennels because of the effect on their socialisation. 

Madison and Emily should be moved to the kennels next Monday (unless something else happens) as they're now fighting fit and ready to be shown to adopters. Lomas is booked in for his X-ray at the Vet School the same day and we are all praying that he'll be able to have his fixator removed so that we don't have any more panics.

Freedom Food Eggs

This article in the FarmingUK online magazine about changes to the Lion code for the "free range" label is both interesting and depressing — and demonstrates the part Freedom Food plays in keeping the developing welfare-audited food market honest. 

"Freedom Food, however, says it is waiting to see evidence that there will be no detrimental effect on animal welfare. If that cannot be produced, it will continue with its stocking density limit of 1,000 birds per hectare."

"Leigh Grant, chief executive of Freedom Food, said the RSPCA was waiting to see the evidence that there would be no effect on animal welfare.

"The RSPCA has had very positive dialogue with the industry and it is asking the industry to provide evidence that this would not prove detrimental to animal welfare," he said. "The industry has agreed to run trials and the RSPCA is awaiting the result.

"My own personal position is that if the industry, working with the RSPCA, is able to arrive at a point where it can show that the change is not detrimental then I would be happy. However, I would not want the RSPCA to be influenced by commercial considerations."

He said that when a product carried the Freedom Food logo that product carried an RSPCA endorsement, so it was inevitable that the RSPCA should be very sensitive about welfare considerations. The RSPCA had worked very hard with the industry over the years to help put free range where it was today and he hoped that co-operation would continue. He pointed out that a huge number of retailers - the majority of them - were with Freedom Food. If the industry was not able to provide evidence that a change in stocking density would not affect animal welfare then the Freedom Food standard would not be changed. Then there would have to be two separate standards and the retailers and their customers would have to make a choice."

So, we could potentially be seeing a situation where "Free Range" labelled eggs could be from hens stocked at twice the density of hens producing eggs under the "Freedom Food" label. (In fact, my reading of the article is that this may already be the case, but the higher-density wouldn't be eligible for the "Lion" quality label.

I can see that there must be pressure to maximise production of food per acre of land. Arguably the ultimate way to do this would be to grow plants for direct human consumption, but people are likely to want to consume eggs for the foreseeable future. Maybe the answer is a return to the older system of poultry flocks in orchards (scroll down to see Chivers' then cutting-edge pedigree flock, just down the road from Cambridge). 

In fact Chivers must have been an absolutely wonderful example of integrated farming for maximum productivity per acre as they seem to have had bees as well as poultry so that their orchards were producing honey, eggs and fruit from a single piece of land. So far as it's possible to tell from the photos, their hens had at least as much space as the best modern free-range farms, and probably better welfare since chickens are naturally woodland birds.

Blog Action Day 08 - Poverty

The Cambridge Clinic

The RSPCA is not simply "the animal police". With 34 clinics and 172 branches which offer financial help for owners on low incomes, we are at least as much about helping owners to keep their animals and care for them properly as we are about preventing bad or incompetent owners from having animals.

The Cambridge RSPCA clinic at 1 Pool Way, Whitehill Road, Cambridge is open for general treatments on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays and on Wednesdays for vaccinations, pre-neutering checks and stitch removals. We start booking people in at roughly 8.30 a.m. and don't accept any further bookings for the morning at 10.30 a.m. The vets begin examining animals just after 9 am.

Treatments are not free, but cost roughly a third of what a private vet would have to charge, and we accept anyone on means tested state benefits or very low income (defined as less than £200 per week household income). Proof of income status must be shown at each visit.

German Shepherd case

By coincidence, I had a call from Maddison's adopter to update us on her progress on the day the court case against her previous owners was finalised, and Storm, the remaining one of the four dogs was signed over to us for rehoming.

He's supposed to be her litter brother, but we wonder if he's actually older, as he's still in much poorer condition than she is. He's very friendly, but still quite a bit thinner than he ought to be. If you might be interested in adopting him, please email rehoming@rspca-cambridge.org.uk

Cash flow for September

Our income for September was £18,868, and expenditure £15,680, so there was a net surplus of £3,998 for the month. However, this was skewed by receipt of the £9,289 payment for reclaimed input VAT relating to the annual payment to the University Vet School for clinical services during 2007 which we made in April. 

Another poor month for the shops — overall profits are almost halved compared with 2007.

When combined with the figures for the number of animals handled by us in the same month, you'll see how the cash flow figures demonstrate that the amount of money available per animal is quite low. We would have no more than £50 available for each animal even if we had no overheads (shop rents etc.) at all.

A brief explanation of how VAT works in relation to charity activities is probably in order. We have to pay output VAT to the Inland Revenue on services (such as our animal clinic) for which we make a charge and which are not VAT exempt. We can reclaim the VAT which is included in charges we pay to our suppliers (such as the University Vet School) to enable us to provide those services. 

A normal business would charge its customers more than it pays its suppliers (or go bust) so, because VAT is calculated as a percentage of VATable charges, its reclaimed VAT would always be less than the VAT owed (so it would have to make a net payment to Inland Revenue every quarter).

We subsidise our clinic services, so we charge clinic users less than it costs us to run the clinic, and this means that the VAT we owe is less than the VAT which is included in the charge made by our suppliers. This means the Inland Revenue owe us money at the end of a quarter (effectively we have overpaid them) and we get a refund four times a year.

At present this is very welcome.

Not so cool for cats

Cats Protection have put out a statement about their investments in Iceland:

"In August 2005, the charity identified that Kaupthing Singer and Friedlander, a UK bank, was a bank where it could invest with confidence as it had a high credit rating. Kaupthing Singer and Friedlander is owned by an Icelandic bank, Kaupthing. Consequently, some of Cats Protection’s cash reserves were placed with them on a 90 day arrangement. Our deposits amounted to £11.2 million.

The credit ratings of the various banks the charity uses are checked periodically and quite recently, Kaupthing Singer and Friedlander’s rating remained sound.

“In the light of the demise of some major banking institutions, Cats Protection decided that it should diversify even further and on 17 September 2008, the charity gave 90 days notice to KSF of its intention to withdraw these deposits.

“On Wednesday afternoon, 8 October, Cats Protection received news that the bank had been put into administration. Some of the deposits held within the Kaupthing bank group have been rescued under a deal set up by the UK treasury. However, at present the future of other deposits, CP’s included, is uncertain. Many local authorities and councils find themselves in similar positions and we and they are exerting pressure on the Treasury to act."

Very worrying.

Some people seem to be taking the view that CP shouldn't have had reserves of that size in any case, and it's worth pointing out that (like us) they handle thousands of cats every year — and also help low income cat owners with vouchers for pet neutering and grants towards emergency vet bills. It's a lot of money, but spread over that number of cases, it doesn't represent a huge amount per individual cat. Setting up a new shelter doesn't leave much change out of several million pounds when you consider that a suitable site could cost at least half a million and would require at least as much again to kit it out with suitable buildings. Even paying just the minimum wage staff costs would be at least £80,000 p.a. to have a rotation to cover holidays and time off and still have someone on the premises 24/7.

Thanks

To the staff and customers of Borders Books for raising £28.44 towards our local animal welfare work from their collecting boxes at the Market St. branch. This would enable us to provide four low-cost pet treatments at our animal clinic.

Ouch!

This does look sore, although I imagine they selected the most dramatic case they could find to get a good photo. Having seen it, I have a better understanding of the drama surrounding a clinic client whose dog has the condition, and which I hope and trust will very soon be sorted out.

Vaginal prolapse looks very dramatic (which is why the owner's neighbours kept making complaints to us about it in spite of the fact that she had taken the dog to our clinic).

It resolves itself spontaneously between heats (so there's a bit of a tendency for an owner who is very pushed for cash to give a sigh of relief and hope it's gone away naturally).

It can't easily be surgically treated while the bitch is still in heat (the safest treatment is to spay her between seasons and put in some stitches to make sure the remaining vaginal tissue stays put where it ought to be).

Taxi drivers recoil in horror and won't have the bitch in their vehicles (so it's very difficult for a very low-income owner to actually get her to a vet for diagnosis and treatment).

Hardly any vets will do home-visits nowadays. We are extremely lucky that Clarendon St vets in Cambridge and Royston Veterinary Centre will do call-outs in their local area.