Traffic to our main website

 If you came to this page searching for a PDSA clinic near Cambridge, please read the information about using the Cambridge RSPCA Animal Clinic. There is no PDSA clinic locally, but the RSPCA clinic is available to help pet owners on low income.

The list of keywords which brought readers to our main website's page with our policy on help with veterinary treatment costs tell an interesting story. Here's the list in full. (I think the first one really wants the University of Pennsylvania Vet School, but can't spell it.) 

The search "why do people give up their pets to the rspca or pdsa" confirms my belief that the average animal-loving member of the public has really very limited knowledge about animal charities—in this case, not enough to know that the PDSA is a purely veterinary charity.

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More genetics and animals

Studies of the damaging effects of small populations and loss of genetic variety in threatened wild animals illustrate why the loss of genetic variation in dogs is potentially such a serious welfare problem:



"Conservation genetics focuses on understanding the role and requirement of genetic variation for population persistence. Can extinction be explained by habitat destruction alone or is lack of genetic variation a part of the explanation? It is now more important than ever that we ask relevant questions about the evolutionary fate of endangered populations throughout the globe and incorporate our knowledge of evolutionary processes and the distribution of genetic diversity into effective conservation planning and action." (From the back cover).









And a cute and very readable history of genetics with special reference to tortoiseshell cats:

Pedigree dogs again

The Independent has a long Crufts article, in places a little odd:

When it comes to the health of breeding dogs, Carol is a little ambivalent. Clumber spaniels tend to be affected by a genetic deficiency called PDP1, which can retard the body's metabolism and make the dogs too exhausted to exercise. Many dogs carry the PDP1 gene and lead long happy lives without being affected. But should they be used for breeding? It's a question at the heart of the Kennel Club controversy. "If they were affected with the disease, you wouldn't breed with them," said Carol. "But you can use a carrier for mating purposes, provided it's mated with a clear dog, so you can breed it out."

She is a fan of the Kennel Club, who gave her a £4,500 grant in 2004 to test 100 dogs for the virus. [my italics]

A genetic defect isn't a virus and, if the comments to the article are anything to go by, a large part of the fury over the whole pedigree dog question stems from people not understanding the basic science. 

Every one of us has some deleterious genes, but most of the time nothing catastrophic results because of genetic diversity —  bad genes are rare, so it is unlikely that two parents have the same problem genes and hence their children won't often inherit two bad copies and suffer the actual disease. Cystic fibrosis is an example: the gene is recessive and 1 in 25 members of the population carry it. However the chance that a baby's parents will both be carriers is only 1 in 625 (1 in 25 x 25) so it is uncommon for children to be born with the disease.

1 in five clumber spaniels is a carrier for PDP1, so there is a 1 in 25 chance of both parents being carriers if breeding pairs are chosen randomly, and this is why health checks are so essential — and are rightly encouraged by the Kennel Club.

However: 1 in five is an astoundingly high frequency for a gene that will make you very ill if you inherit two copies. That kind of frequency would only happen under natural conditions in two possible scenarios.

1. The population size was reduced to a very few individuals at some point and, by chance, some of those individuals happened to be carriers (for example if a few animals were carried to an island on a floating log).
2. Animals with one "bad" and one "good" copy of the gene had some survival advantage; as in the case of human Sickle Cell Anaemia

In Clumbers, the most likely cause is that humans inadvertently caused an artificial analogue of the first option; either because a very small number of dogs were used to create the breed originally, or because at some point a very popular sire happened to be a carrier. 

Independent of the danger that harmful recessive genes may become abnormally frequent if some dogs sire huge numbers of puppies, inbreeding means that both a puppy's parents are likely to carry the same copies of any harmful genes. It doesn't cause bad genes, but it dramatically increases a puppy's chances of inheriting two copies and suffering the actual disease rather than being a carrier.

So - some of the furious argument about cross-bred dogs is actually a red herring, because the need for sophisticated health checks before breeding is, at least partially, an artifact of the abnormal population structure of pedigree dogs.  

The Dogs Trust/Kennel Club Independent enquiry into dog breeding now has a website.

Legal confusion?

Local PCSO [Police Community Support Officer] phoned us asking for clarification of the law on fatal dog attacks on other dogs. This is definitely above my pay grade, so I'm afraid I simply put him on to the NCC, but I subsequently tried Google search to see if I could find more information.

Answer seems to be a very definite "not sure". Woking council say very firmly that this is a civil matter between the dead dog's owner and the owner of the other dog. Hertfordshire council say the owner of the attacked dog can report the incident to either the police or the dog warden for action. DEFRA's leaflet says an offence "may have been committed" if a dog attacks another dog. Bournemouth council say dog attacks should be reported to their Animal Welfare officers.

I'm afraid the answer is probably that this is a policy issue that's decided very locally on the basis of available resources.

RSPCA Week 2009 27th April to 3rd May

We need as many collectors as possible to maximise our fundraising from this opportunity kindly provided by Tesco. We have permission to collect during the week outside all the main Tesco stores in our area (Bar Hill, Ely, Newmarket, Fulbourn, Milton, Cambridge and Royston). As in previous years, the Royston collection will be used to help fund rabbit fostering at the Rabbit Residence.

If you could help, even for just a few hours, please email secretary@rspcacambridge.org.uk or rabbit_residence@hotmail.com (Royston only), or leave your name at the Newmarket or Cambridge charity shop.  Tins, badges etc. will be available closer to the actual date.

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

Trapping and neutering feral cats

I noticed that the RSPCA policy on feral cats doesn't appear in searches because it's in a PDF document, so maybe it would be of interest to post it here.
The policy says:

"The RSPCA recommends that, where the welfare of feral cats is ensured and their presence is accepted by the owners of the site, the animals should be humanely trapped whereafter veterinary advice should be sought regarding their health status and attempts should be made to rehome very young kittens or other cats which are not totally feral. Euthanasia should be carried out on those cats which in the opinion of the veterinary surgeon are seriously ill or which are injured to the extent that returning to the site would result in continuing suffering and the remaining cats should be neutered. While under anaesthetic for such neutering, the left ear of the cat should be "tipped" to enable the cat to be easily recognised as having been neutered and the neutered and identified cats should be returned to the site and any further suitable advice given.

The treatment against fleas and round and tape worms of all cats selected for rehoming or for neutering as above is considered necessary.
"Tipping" means the removal of 6 mm, by a straight cut, of the tip of the ear.

The RSPCA recommends that, where the welfare of feral cats cannot be ensured or their presence is not accepted by the owners of the site, the contact should be told of the RSPCA policy given above and be given the opportunity to reconsider. If this fails to resolve the problem, or where the presence of feral cats cannot be permitted because of legal reasons, the RSPCA recommends that all cats are humanely trapped, treated and neutered, then rehomed or re-sited wherever possible, or humanely euthanased.

The RSPCA cannot guarantee that animals trapped by pest control firms will be destroyed in accordance with methods approved by the RSPCA."

We need more volunteers who would be willing to help with trapping and neutering cats. You would need to have the use of a car and to be fairly physically fit as the traps are quite large. If you might be interested in helping, please email rehoming@rspca-cambridge.org.uk
We don't get huge numbers of requests to trap and release feral cats, more a recurring trickle, but it is quite time-consuming, because several journeys are usually needed for each cat trapped.

Cats Protection will also help with neutering feral cats if they can. Click here to see their policy.

Rabbits Campaign

Make Mine Chocolate!™ now have posters to download. Please support them by printing out a poster and displaying it in the run-up to Easter to discourage the giving of rabbits as pets.

If anyone thinks their claim that thousands of rabbits die from neglect each year is an exaggeration, remember:

• Pet rabbits die because their owners don't know they need to be vaccinated. Every year our group euthanases dying rabbits whose owners didn't vaccinate against myxomatosis in order to save them further suffering. Multiply that by the number of RSPCA branches in this country and the result is over a thousand from that cause alone.
• Pet rabbits die because their owners don't know how to feed them correctly. Rabbits must have a diet predominantly based on large quantities of grass (not lawn-clippings!), hay or dried grass. Without correct feeding they are liable to painful tooth and gut problems.
• Pet rabbits die because their owners don't know to treat them against parasites. Regular vet visits are an essential.
• Pet rabbits die because they are kept in restricted conditions where they cannot exercise.

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.

On BBC 1 TODAY — Thursday

Puppy Farming (Follow link to view the program on the BBC iPlayer)

19 Feb 2009 20:00 on BBC One (except Scotland)

25 Feb 2009 19:30 on BBC One (Scotland only)

Matt Allwright and Dan Penteado are hunting and confronting more rogues. They investigate pet shops and dog breeders who sell sick puppies. The Rogue Traders team go undercover to buy three puppies from establishments which have been reported to the RSPCA or trading standards. One of the puppies cost 350 pounds and was bought as a pedigree King Charles spaniel. But within a few days it falls ill with Parvo virus, a severe intestinal infection, and has to be put down.
Matt and the team reveal that in many cases, the paperwork is inadequate to prove a puppy's pedigree, or that it has been properly vaccinated. One of the dogs purchased by the Rogue Traders team had a docked tail, a procedure which was made illegal in England, Scotland and Wales in 2007.
When Matt confronts one puppy farm, the breeder attempts to hold the team captive. It takes a visit by the police to get them released.

Online puppy scam

Not in fact an animal welfare problem (these are fictitious pups), but worth flagging up because the scammers seem to be targeting legitimate animal welfare organisations and trying to get them to advertise the puppies as pets needing good homes. Anyone who responds to the adverts is asked to send money in advance to pay for transport expenses (which is how the scammers make their money). Being featured on a trusted organisation's website is a way to catch people who know enough to be suspicious of unsolicited emails or adverts on obviously commercial sites.

Nigerian pet scam

How it works: Scammers either run online classified ads or create breeder Web sites offering purebred puppies -- typically English bulldogs or Yorkshire terriers -- either free or at a discounted price.

The story can vary as to why the animal is free or discounted -- the current owner is a missionary who needs to find the puppy a new home due to the terrible weather in its current location; the animal was rescued from a natural disaster and needs a good home, etc.

The scammer will then ask interested buyers to pay for the dog's shipment, down payment, inoculations and any number of other miscellaneous fees. The victims wire money for the dogs but generally only get excuses for the delay. Instead, they're repeatedly asked for more money to cover additional "fees" invented by the scammer.

Never buy a puppy over the Internet "sight unseen". A reputable breeder will want to meet you in person to check that you are a suitable person to care for their precious puppy.

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

If you are interested in training as a branch home-visitor, there are still some places available for the training day on Sunday 1st March. Please email rehoming@rspca-cambridge.org.uk if you would like to come.

Missing dog

Jacob's owners have asked us to publicise him on our website:

HAVE YOU SEEN JACOB ?
Orange & White Bracco Italiano 3 Year Old Male Missing from CB11 Area

Missing while on a walk in the Littlebury Green, Saffron Walden, Essex area

on Wednesday 21st January 2009

Jacob is MICROCHIPPED BUT IS NO LONGER WEARING HIS COLLAR & TAGS
PLEASE CHECK OUTBUILDINGS, SHEDS, BARNS & GARAGES
PLEASE LOOK OUT FOR HIM IN YOUR AREA
SUBSTANTIAL REWARD FOR JACOB’S SAFE RETURN

07828 671550

Buying a puppy

Owners who genuinely can't afford a vet's fees

The vetnurse has a post about a dog who was probably dumped because the owner didn't take him to a vet in time and then got frightened to take him because by that time his tumour looked so dreadful (warning - graphic photos). 

There is help out there BUT:

• You need to be realistic that charities probably won't be able to fund very expensive treatment and euthanasia to prevent more suffering may be the only option.
• It may be quite difficult to locate a source of help — particularly for someone who is elderly or confused.

The PDSA (People's Dispensary for Sick Animals) operates in all of the UK and offers long-term help for owners on housing benefit or council tax benefit. There is quite a complicated registration procedure and it's designed to allow pet owners who know they would have problems paying for treatment to register for help before something happens. The PDSA uses a mix of its own clinics and help via private vets. They can be contacted by phoning 0800 731 2502.

The Blue Cross accepts a wider range of state benefits (or proof of very low income) and most of its help is provided via private vets, although it also has some clinics of its own in Grimsby and London.  The Blue Cross can be contacted by phoning 0300 123 9933.

The RSPCA accepts  means tested state benefits as proof of eligibility. It's more geared towards dealing with sudden emergency situations than the other two, although it's possible to register pets for long-term help where a clinic or hospital exists. Where help is provided at private vets it's generally expected that this will be a one-off to resolve an immediate welfare problem. All RSPCA branches are expected to provide at least the cost of a standard veterinary consult fee and either pain relief or euthanasia in an emergency situation where an owner is on benefits/pension as part of their Minimum Animal Welfare Standards. All of England and Wales is covered, but not Scotland or Ulster.

If your local RSPCA has a clinic or animal hospital this will be listed in Yellow Pages under "Animal Welfare". Unfortunately if the branch does not have a clinic and relies on providing help via private vets, it may not be easy to contact the person who is responsible for running the assistance scheme. They may have a number listed in Yellow Pages, but generally the best way to find the current number is to contact the National Control Centre on 0300 1234 999 and follow the voice menu prompts. This may defeat an elderly or confused person.

Most vets will be in day to day contact with welfare charities, and they will not mind being asked for advice on getting help, although they won't be happy to be expected to give a discount on their services — they have bills to pay at the end of the day too. If they do offer a discount or allow payment in instalments it is important that they are thanked for it. 

Thank You!

Many thanks to the kind person who donated an upright piano for sale at our charity shop in Cambridge. It sold for £500 last week — enough to fund all our animal welfare services locally for two days.

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.

Be A Zoo Vet (Using Maths)

One of a series of books aimed at children in the age range 8-12, offering examples of the practical application of maths skills in real-life scenarios. 

The text has been checked for factual accuracy by a practising vet, and the examples are calculations which might actually be used by someone caring for animals (for example calculating correct worming doses using the animal's weight): they are not re-hashes of the old "how long will it take to fill a bath" problems.

I might have preferred a scenario based around pet or farm animals, but I think that's me being picky. The text includes some strong welfare messages (for example the danger of feeding unsuitable items) and it would help to give an "animal-mad" child the motivation to learn maths as a pathway to careers with animals. 

Cat population part two

The Southampton cat population study led to a major rethink about tackling the problem of the number of cats coming into rescue. 

I can remember the first wave of projects, about seven years ago, when branches tried to adopt a scientific approach, based on the study's figures for the percentage of neutered cats needed for the population to be in balance. Ideally, this involved selecting areas which experience had shown were a frequent source of incoming cats; surveying local cat owners to find the percentage of un-neutered females and following up with a campaign to offer vouchers for spay/neuter in areas where the percentage of un-neutered cats was higher than needed to produce just enough kittens to replace cats dying from natural causes. 

This sounded wonderful, but in practice was so labour-intensive that hardly anyone actually managed to follow the whole protocol.

The second wave was less scientifically ambitious and just involved the branch identifying areas tending to generate incoming cats and targeting offers of neutering vouchers to those areas. 

The third wave evolved into the current series of Community Animal Action Weeks, which have been so successful and useful on many fronts, not just cat numbers, that they are probably the final, optimised version. 

The aim of Community Animal Action Week is to help pet owners by providing free animal care advice and discounted microchipping. Neutering vouchers will also be provided.

Local RSPCA officers will team up with dog wardens and police community support officers to visit as many homes in the selected areas as possible. The service is free, but anyone receiving help is welcome to make a small donation towards the charity's costs.

An additional bonus of the Animal Action Weeks is the way they give Inspectors, ACOs and volunteers a unique chance to work together as a team on something positive, rather than continual "fire-fighting" and to get away from the "us and them" view of the general public. Several people I know who participated commented that, even on supposedly "sink" estates, the vast majority of pet owners want to do the right thing and do look after their animals.

Bunnies everywhere!

The Eastern Region has just issued an appeal to help rehome another 56 rabbits! 

Once again, this illustrates what a major problem there is with impulse purchase of cute, furry babies who grow into adults who need at least as much exercise and space as a cat and have the potential to produce exponential numbers of babies.

If you are thinking of acquiring pet rabbits, please consider adopting a pair from a rescue organisation. Please, also take the time to research what rabbits need for a satisfactory life. 

Our branch rescue rabbits are fostered by our partner the Rabbit Residence Rescue whose website has lots of photos showing how much more interesting rabbits are as pets if they are given accommodation that lets them do more than a couple of hops in either direction in a hutch that is more like a prison cell than a home. 

If you are interested in adopting one of our rabbits, please make contact with Caroline initially by phone to make an appointment to visit. Her mobile number is 07904 397 378

Caroline also needs volunteers willing to help with care of the rabbits - and would also like to hear from any gardeners who can take away rabbit manure as this is surprisingly expensive to have removed by waste contractors.

Cat population

Two interesting science articles about regulation of the domestic cat population size, tip Saving Pets.

"Each cat-owning household kept 1.3 cats on average, with the majority keeping one (75.8% households) or two (18.7%). For the 260 cats, the mean age was 7.1 years, the median 6 years, with a range of 3 months to 22 years. There were significantly more female (143; 55%) than male cats (117; 45%). Only seven cats (2.7%) were sexually entire, and these were all ≤6 years. Crossbred cats outnumbered pedigree cats by a ratio of 3.3:1." (Demographics and husbandry of pet cats living in Sydney, Australia: results of cross-sectional survey of pet ownership doi:10.1016/j.jfms.2008.06.010 )

"Recently, neutering of domestic cats has been encouraged by veterinary surgeons and rescue organisations as a means of population control for both the pet and feral populations. This is likely to have profound effects on cat population dynamics (and population genetics). In an attempt to quantify this, we have carried out population studies, by means of door-to-door surveys in Southampton and the surrounding area. The aims were to quantify levels of neutering, and investigate the recent reproductive status of the cat population.

The most comprehensive of these surveys was carried out in a 50 ha area in the Shirley area of Southampton (UK). Householders were interviewed from 949 (80.8%) of the 1175 residences in the area. This revealed a population of 315 cats, of which 21 were pedigrees (and were excluded from further analysis) and 294 were mongrels. Overall neutering rates were very high: 96.8% of adult males and 98.7% of adult females were neutered. The oldest cats in the survey had been born 18 years previously, so it was possible to examine trends in neutering over this time period. However, many females were allowed to reproduce before being neutered, so a more informative analysis came from relating lifetime fecundity (mediated by neutering) to year of birth. Mean lifetime fecundity could be calculated for each cohort where all the females had ultimately been neutered. The regression (Fig. 1) shows a dramatic decline in the mean number of litters born per female, from over 0.6 in 1978 to 0.12 in 1991–1992. With a measured median litter size of 4, 0.5 litters/female are needed to keep the population size constant; increasing neutering has meant that the cats in the Shirley survey area fell below this level of fecundity in the early 1980s. In 1994, owned cats in the area could only produce sufficient kittens to maintain the population at approximately 25% of its present level."

(Feral cats: their role in the population dynamics of Felis catus doi:10.1016/S0168-1591(99)00086-6)

So, a combination of education and help with costs where needed can prevent pet over-population and the need to put down healthy animals.

Report on pedigree dogs published

The independent RSPCA-commissioned report on pedigree dog breeding and the need for change is now available.

Cat with broken jaw

She was picked up as an injured stray over the weekend and taken to Vet24 for first aid. They established that she'd got a broken jaw and probable nerve damage or crack in one front leg, so they gave her pain relief and fluids and asked me to arrange for Nicola to take her to the RSPCA clinic in the morning.

Got it all sorted, then later that evening they phoned to say an owner had turned up and would do the transfer herself as she was already registered with the clinic. Next day, at lunch-time, Vicki phoned asking if the cat was still expected as it was past closing time and they wanted to go. Phoned Vet24 and they confirmed the cat had been collected together with her notes. Where is she?! 

They'd noted down a mobile number for the owner, so I phoned that. 

Weird conversation with the owner who was clearly now completely spaced out and unaware that her cat had basically just had pain relief; she might seem "fine" now, but she wouldn't be once it had worn off, and anyway she wouldn't be able to eat with her jaw flopping loose.

Phoned the NCC and asked for one of the local inspectors to visit and check what was going on. Upshot is that the kitty is now back at Vet24 and hopefully will be transferred (by us) to the clinic for her surgery on Thursday.

Stray dogs

From the South Cambs website:

"Under the Environmental Protection Act 1990 any dog found wandering in a public place alone can be seized by the council as a stray and taken to kennels. Owners will have to pay a seizure and kennelling fee before the dog can be released. If the dog is not claimed within seven days it will be signed over to the kennels for possible re-homing and you as the former owner will loose all rights to its return.

From April 2008 Cambridgeshire Police no longer have any responsibilities for stray dogs and are not legally obliged to accept any that are brought to them. However, arrangements have been made for the Police to accept stray dogs on behalf of the council outside normal office hours and at weekends at Parkside Police Station in Cambridge.

It is a legal requirement that every dog in a public place must wear a collar and tag with identification. This enables anyone finding a stray dog to contact its owner."

This is an extremely helpful decision by Cambs. police. If your dog strays, be aware that the reclamation fee may be as much as £100 if the council has had to board him for several days, or used its out of hours arrangements. I've just had to refuse to help someone with no money and a £100 fee to pay. Unfortunately we just don't have enough funds to help with anything other than lifesaving treatment. In any case, I'm doubtful whether this would be an appropriate use of charitable funds; the council charges fees as a deterrent as well as a way to recoup its costs.

Australian Bushfires

RSPCA Victoria (RSPCA Australia in the State of Victoria), has an appeal page for donations.

Statistics for January

During January we rehomed five dogs and six cats, neutered fourteen dogs, thirteen cats and thirteen rabbits and provided veterinary treatment for 219 dogs, 124 cats, 9 rabbits and 11 miscellaneous small animals.

RSPCA home-checking

Anyone who has felt offended by the checks we do before placing animals for adoption or fostering should read two news stories which broke over the past few days, as they show the kinds of situations home-visiting is designed to prevent.

The first comes from the US

Prosecutors said Chambers placed only six of the 28 dogs he received from the animal group, and three died from injuries that appeared to have come from fighting. Two other dogs were put down by police, and at least one dog that Chambers said had been adopted was found at the pound, according to court records. (via the Pet Connection blog). More on this story here.

Best Friends, the animal welfare group who placed the dogs, do seem to have interviewed Chambers and tried to get some background information about him, but it doesn't appear that anyone independent actually went and looked at his facilities to check that they were suitable. I think some of the comments about them are a bit harsh, as they probably did find that dogs who had been used to living in a "free range" domestic situation weren't happy being kennelled long-term and that was why they were so anxious to move them on for rehoming.

The second is a desperately sad illustration of why we ask apparently obsessive questions about whether the household will include small children (including ones who visit regularly), and what arrangements will be made to ensure that they will never be left alone with dogs.

Neighbours say the baby was asleep in his basket on the ground floor of the house when the dogs attacked.

They heard screams shortly after midnight as Wilson ran into the street shouting for help. They went into the house to find Jaden still being mauled by the dogs.

Dogs are large-mammal predators who would kill animals much larger than themselves in the wild. Even quite a small dog is capable of doing a terrible amount of injury. Normally our own dogs are socialised to us and would not harm us. BUT:

• Babies may not be recognised by a dog as belonging to the same species as adult humans.
• When babies or small children are only intermittently in a house they may not be seen by the dogs as part of their "pack" (wolves don't have grandmothers or step-mothers), and this may create a particularly risky situation.
• If a dog has been accustomed to behaving as a dominant member of the family he may resent children who don't behave in a "respectful" manner.
  
• A child may quite innocently do something which causes a dog to bite in fear - for example by falling onto a sleeping dog.
  

Bottom line: small children must not be left alone with dogs (and it must be remembered that an older child may not be in danger herself, but may not be capable of protecting a smaller one).

Home-visitors' training day: change of date

The home-visitors' training day has been rescheduled to Sunday 1st March from 10.30 to 3.30 at Cherry Hinton Village Hall (not the same place as Cherry Hinton Hall).

There are still vacant places. If you would like to attend, please email rehoming@rspca-cambridge.org.uk

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.

Another staffy, I presume

Part of yesterday's frenzy was the stream of phone calls, which I'm afraid may have been another reason why the students' "user experience" was less than optimal. Three of them illustrate something of a deeper truth about the assumptions we make about dogs.

Number one: Richard, one of the inspectors, called to say he'd been asked to take in a young dog, with a teenaged owner. Dog not well, and needing veterinary treatment, but in the circumstances not the owner's fault as she'd got no home, no money and no transport. I agreed we'd pay for treatment and boarding. As a bit of an afterthought, I asked what breed the dog was:"A Staffy, I suppose?" Richard said: "Yes, she was," and we both muttered a bit about how hard they are to rehome and not wanting to put down such a young animal without at least giving her a chance. 

Number two: Clinic client phoned: her cocker spaniel had badly bitten several family members, including a small child, without any provocation or warning. This was the second time he'd bitten and she was now waiting for the police and ambulance and would need to have the dog put to sleep as an emergency. I agreed with the vet that there really wasn't any choice and organised an appointment for her.

And, number three: Call from Richard to say the Staffy pup was doing fine, except for an upset tum, and one of the vet nurses had fallen in love with him and wanted to adopt him. Sometimes there are happy endings.

Staffys are not bad dogs (nor are cockers: rage sydrome, which may have been what affected this dog is very rare). They do need sensible care and training and many of them will fight other dogs, but so will Jack Russells. The main reason why we have a "Staffy problem" is that they happen to have become the pet of choice for owners who have lots of difficulties of their own, which means they find it harder to afford veterinary treatment costs and are more likely to have domestic emergencies that mean they have to rehome their dogs.

Busy day

Fortuitously, I'd already booked to take a day's leave so I could do the RSPCA stand at the University Careers Service "working for a charity" event, so I was available when Marion phoned this morning to say her road was completely iced up and she couldn't get her car out to cover reception at the clinic this morning.

After hiking across the white hell that is Coldham's common* I got my chance to practice my rusty skills on the client records system—fortunately to a fairly scanty waiting room, as I rapidly discovered that it has evolved quite a lot since I originally did the training course on the basis that it would be handy to have someone who lives close who could cover in an emergency. Even more fortunately, Tina who also lives just down the road, did get in so there were two of us to kick the printer every time it jammed again.

Finished just after twelve, then another hike into town to set up the info. stand, which may have meant some students who planned to see it in their lunch hour were disappointed. However it was really well attended with lots of interest in volunteering as well as possible job opportunities.

*Anyone viewing from Canada can be considered to have laughed enough by now. In our defence, the problem with British snow is that there's not enough of it and it's not cold enough. Most of the time cars are driving on a very thin layer of ice with a nice surface lubrication of wet slush, so tyre chains probably wouldn't help much.

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.

Technical Large Animal Rescue

Reading Technical Large Animal Rescue or its companion website won't qualify you to rescue animals, but it may terrify you enough to protect you (and the animals!) from "fools rush in" syndrome. 

TLAER is really intended as a textbook to accompany practical instruction in rescue techniques (and it can't be stressed enough that most of the techniques fall into the "don't try this at home" category and are not things that can be learned from a book without the practical aspect). 

It would also be useful as a casebook of examples of things ordinary owners can do to prevent their animals getting into trouble and needing to be rescued and possibly as a source of suggestions of practical things that voluntary groups might do to improve rescue facilities locally. 

SSPCA press release

Having had phone conversations where I never did manage to make the person on the other end believe our clinic isn't run by the PDSA, the Scots have my sympathy, even if I do think they might have phased it all a bit more tactfully.

The USPCA are even more unlucky with the potential for confusion with the other Irish SPCA's in the Republic.

This earlier article gives some background on why the three societies need to be separate legal entities.

Legacies are always going to be a contentious issue, as there's no way to go back in time and ask the testator why a particular charity was selected. Individual RSPCA branches are separate charities in their own right and there's almost equal scope for ill-feeling about whether legacies should go to a particular branch, or to into the national "pot".

Briefly: If you live in Scotland, then your local SPCA is the Scottish SPCA. In Northern Ireland, it's the USPCA. In England and Wales, you have a choice between the National Society (your legacy will be used to fund activities such as the Inspectorate which are managed centrally), or your local branch (your legacy will be used to fund animal welfare work within the branch area).

If you would like to make a legacy to RSPCA Cambridge (see map for our area of activity), the way to avoid any possibility of confusion is to ask your solicitor to specify our full name "RSPCA Cambridge and District Branch" and charity number (205098). 

And finally...

A spokesman for the RSPCA denied that the charity had run Scotland-specific fundraising campaigns. He said: "Some digital channels don't allow adverts not to be shown in some areas, but we refer all Scottish donors to the Scottish SPCA. It is more trouble than it is worth for us to aggravate people."

I do actually believe him, even if no-one else does...

More comparisons

Compared with the London Ambulance Service fiasco, the NCC really doesn't look too bad. Note that the annual budget for the LAS is about £200 million — roughly double the RSPCA's annual income. They get approximately the same number of calls as the NCC over the course of a year.

Cambridge in the snow

Pretty, but not really quite sufficient to justify the shock and awe.

Comparison

Some figures from the Home Office performance report on Cambridgeshire police make an interesting comparison:

* Police Officers: 1,379
* Police Staff: 892
* Community Support Officers: 197
* Other Staff: 25
* Special Constables: 210

Budget 2007/08: £116.0 million

Cambridgeshire alone has an annual income that roughly matches the resources the RSPCA has to fund all its national services (Inspectorate, animal homes, campaigns, scientific etc.). Next time you hear that someone phoned the RSPCA and "no-one was available to come out that day," please remember those figures. It isn't that "no-one cares".

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.