Make mine chocolate - but not if you are a cat or a dog!

As Easter approaches, please remember that ordinary chocolate is poisonous to dogs, because it contains a stimulant called theobromine, which we can detoxify safely, but carnivores like dogs and cats cannot. Special dog chocolate is safe for pets because it contains little or no actual cocoa bean extracts.

You also need to be careful about using cocoa bean husks as garden mulch if your dog likes to pick up stuff and chew it.

Myxomatosis reminder

Please don't forget that mosquitos and biting midges will become active about a month from now as the weather gets warmer. Now is the time to make sure that your rabbits are up to date with their myxomatosis vaccinations so they are protected from this dreadful disease, which is spread by biting insects.

If you are on benefits, you can get your rabbits boosters done at our clinic for only £7.

Please remember our charity shops

Spring is just around the corner and if you are having a clear-out, please remember that our charity shops can make good use of discarded textile items—things like curtains and cushion covers as well as clothes. Prices for rags to recycle are still good, so even worn-out items can still help us raise much needed funds. 

Non textile items need to be in reasonably good condition so that they can be sold in the shop, as they don't have a value when recycled. 

Please make sure donations are reasonably clean (no abandoned sticky sweets in pockets, please!) so that they're not unpleasant for our volunteers to sort. 

If you have a mix of worn-out/damaged and nearly new clothes, it is extremely helpful to us if you can pre-sort them into separate bags so that the worn-out ones can go straight into the recycling area. 

Donations can be handed in at either of our shops: 156 High Street, Newmarket or 188 Mill Road, Cambridge. We can usually arrange to collect if you have large amounts and live reasonably close to Cambridge.

View Larger Map

Found Cat: Royston

She's a tabby, wearing a collar with magnetic tag. She was taken to Royston Veterinary Centre, Valley Rise, Newmarket Road, Royston, on Tuesday evening after being hit by a car. Now at the University Vet School Hospital. She has a badly fractured pelvis which will need surgical repair, but otherwise seems fairly bright. Email rosemary@rspca-cambridge.org.uk if you think she might be yours.

Clinic licensed for another two years

Steve Cheetham, the RSPCA Chief Veterinary Officer inspected our clinic yesterday, and we've been informally told that we've passed and will get our licence to run for another two years. I'm awaiting the full report to see whether he's recommended any things we ought to improve. All RSPCA branch clinics are visited every two years to check that they are being run in a proper and professional manner and that we are complying with the law on storage of medicines etc.

Particular thanks to Paul, our cleaner, who does a sterling job keeping our surroundings hygienic and safe for the animals.

View Larger Map


Clinic entrance off Whitehill Road

Sadly StreetView doesn't seem to think it ought to walk down private roads. We are the first turning to the right of the driveway, behind all the greenery.

Science books at 188 Mill Road: continued

You can also browse and buy online (there are more books in the shop, so please call in as well if you are in Cambridge).

Ada Lovelace day

Today is the first Ada Lovelace day, celebrating women in science and technology. There are actually quite a lot of women who are prominent in the scientific side of promoting animal welfare; examples are Jane Goodall, Mary Midgley, Marion Dawkins, Karen Pryor and Temple Grandin.

Points from the Regional Board meeting

Lots of animal welfare activity going on, but the economic situation will mean retrenchment in many areas. In the East region, education posts falling vacant will not be filled, and the Branch Development Advisers will be reduced from 5 to 4. It seems to be generally felt that the RSPCA is in a better position than it was in the 2002 downturn, but we still need to make savings overall of £9 Million on the RSPCA's total annual budget.

As the cost of boarding animals until they can be rehomed is such a large part of the budget of both Region and the Branches, we need to redouble our efforts to achieve rapid throughput of animals.  We also need to work to increase income from sources which are under our control, such as our charity shops, visits to animal centres etc.

The new "Facing the Future" tool to help branch committees analyse their own branch's strengths and weaknesses will be coming into operation this year, following last year's trial. Committees will be asked to complete the spreadsheet immediately following their AGMs, when their annual report and accounts are freshly out, so that the analysis can be as relevant as possible. The spreadsheet records finances, numbers of volunteers, branch resources (e.g. shops, animal centres, clinics), current levels of animal welfare activities and what could be done to increase provision of welfare services in the branch area.

Lost Cat

Thistle, who has been lost from Tenison Avenue (CB1 2DX) since the weekend. He is a small, very nervous male, who is microchipped. His collar contains his phone number but he may have lost it. The numbers are 01223 328 490 or 07714 090 064

Regional Board at Block Fen Animal Centre

We had the chance to take a look round the new rabbit accommodation and I took some photos.

One of the outside runs, showing steps to indoor raised sleeping area. Note the litter trays which make cleaning out easier and also make a great "selling point" for any adopters considering keeping their rabbits as indoor pets.

Another view of an outside run, showing plastic tubes for behavioural enrichment.

Slightly blurred pic. of the raised indoor area. Notice how confident the rabbits are. Being on a level with the human viewers makes it easier to clean them out and helps display them to adopters. It also seems to make the rabbits more relaxed if humans are on a level rather than above them.

Rabbit going up the steps to enter the sleeping quarters via "rabbit-flap". We saw the rabbits confidently hopping in and out and they seem to learn to operate the flap very readily.

Lost Cat

Missing after a run in with another cat on Friday 13th March 2009 at around 11pm - very friendly and talkative, very pretty sandy grey shorthair tabby female with distinctive stripy markings/swirls with fluffy caramel coloured belly.

She is around 5 years old. She likes to get in small spaces/cupboards and is very curious of garages/sheds

Lost from the Duxford area. Any sightings, please phone +44 (0) 845 497 3718 (work 9-5pm) or
01223 830 702 (home)

Missing sparrow(s)

On Radio 4 last night. It seems to be conclusive that cats are not to blame and that loss of garden shrubbery to "easy-care" decking and concrete is a more likely culprit, because it reduces the number of insects on which sparrows feed their chicks.

Natural England have a database which lets you find garden plants that are particularly helpful for different animal species. There is an entry for house sparrows.  

Stray ferret

Dave Dodds of the local ferret rescue very kindly agreed to take last night's stray ferret, found wandering in Girton. We'll cover seven days boarding with him, plus the cost of neutering. If you've lost a ferret in the Girton area, please email Dave at dave_dodds@hotmail.com

If you're thinking of getting a ferret as a pet, please consider adopting a rescue. Dave nearly always has lots needing good homes, and because he is very knowledgeable he's well placed to give you advice to get you started correctly.

Thank-you!

Thanks to Scaltback School, Newmarket who have raised £150.00 from a Swimming Gala for the RSPCA.

Science books at 188 Mill Road

In honour of Cambridge Science Festival, the RSPCA Bookshop is featuring a display of second-hand science books. We have some excellent bargains, including a copy of the classic Infant Chimpanzee and Human Child.

Another benefit of getting your cat chipped

You can now get cat flaps which detect your cat's chip in order to release the locking mechanism. This ensures that only your own cats can use the flap without the use of uncomfortable and potentially dangerous collars. Cat flaps can sometimes be a bit of a mixed blessing for a timid cat because of the risk that they might allow rivals to invade what should be a secure haven.

There are currently two UK manufacturers, PetPorte and Sureflap. The SureFlap system is nicely appropriate for Cambridge Science Festival fortnight as the technology that powers it was developed by Cambridge Resonant Technologies Ltd of the St John's Innovation Centre

Equine questionnaire

If you own horses, or ride regularly, please complete the questionnaire on planning for your horse's future at http://www.lockwooddonkeycentre.org.uk/questionnaire.htm

Animal welfare statistics for February

During February 2009, we treated 309 owned (199 dogs, 97 cats, 5 rabbits and 8 miscellaneous small animals) and 34 unowned animals (3 dogs and 31 cats) and rehomed six cats and one dog. We neutered 20 dogs 15 cats and 19 rabbits.

Vaccinating against myxomatosis

Spring is just around the corner, and with it will come the first of the two annual peaks of myxomatosis (the second is in the Autumn). If it is more than six months since your rabbit was last vaccinated then you need to be thinking of arranging for a booster.

Every year rabbits are brought to us suffering from myxomatosis because their owners did not realise that urban (even indoor) rabbits are still at risk, because the disease can be spread by biting insects. Vaccination does not provide 100% protection, but a vaccinated rabbit will almost always throw off the disease with no permanent ill effects, while an unvaccinated rabbit will almost always die.

Branch AGM provisional date

The provisional date for Cambridge Branch's Annual General Meeting is 30th June. 7.30 p.m. for 8 p.m. start at the Friends Meeting House, Jesus Lane, Cambridge. This the time when branch members have their chance to elect new committee members to run the branch in the following year. 

 
View Larger Map

We need to elect a minimum of seven committee members, and at least ten adult voting members must be present for a valid election. If we fail to achieve this (fairly low) standard, then the meeting fails and we will either be asked to try again or else dissolve the committee and hand control over to the National RSPCA until such time as a valid committee can be elected. 

If you are a branch member, please do try to attend your local branch AGM — apart from other considerations it is very embarrassing, and a waste of time and money, when senior staff from the Region turn out to an AGM and the branch can't even muster ten members to make it worthwhile.

The RSPCA is very dependent on volunteer effort. If you've ever thought "the RSPCA ought to do more about..." this is your chance to make a difference.

Music in charity shops

Bah, humbug! We already have to pay a £70 fee per shop each year to the PRS for permission to listen to the radio and it's now looking as if we will have an additional fee to pay to PPL. I have never downloaded music without paying for it, or made copies of tapes or CDs, but I do resent being forced to hand over the equivalent of the cost of two spay operations for something that has already been paid for by the radio station. I resent it even more when the volunteers are actually listening to the cricket and not playing music at all. 

East Winch Wildlife Hospital seal release

The RSPCA East Winch Wildlife Hospital is our regional facility for treating injured wildlife. It's paid for and run by the national RSPCA.

To view the video properly, scroll it sideways so that it centres on the page, then hit replay.

Bramble clearing working party March 29th

We're going to make a start on clearing the brambles and piles of brush in the area at the back of the animal clinic on Sunday March 29th. Start 9 am (yes - I do know this is the day the clocks go forward), finish around 1 p.m. This is the fire exit route for the rooms to the rear of the building, so we need to keep it free of obstructions.

We could do with more volunteers (turn up any time between 9 and 1). You'll need gardening gloves, and it would be very helpful if you could bring secateurs or loppers.

Another stray rabbit

Found wandering in Caribou Way, Cherry Hinton at about 5 pm on Tuesday, 10th March. He's an un-neutered male, possibly mini-Rex; mainly white with some fawn markings.

Lost Cat - NOW FOUND

He's a tabby and white, neutered male, very recently adopted (not from us!) and got out of the house only a few days afterwards, so may be trying to make his way back to his old home. Please email rosemary@rspca-cambridge.org.uk if a new cat of this description turns up in the Cambridge area. Adopter is an OAP and worried about him.

Update: now found.

Lost cats again

From our inbox:

"Dear RSPCA,

I filled in a form yesterday regarding my cat “Toffee” who had gone missing. I just wanted to let you know that we found him last night. He had been accidentally shut in a garage in a house in an adjoining road to us.

I also wanted to let you know that I found the advice on your website saying that cats normally patrol a territory of up to 7 gardens in all directions particularly helpful. It was this that prompted us to renew our search of that area and to keep calling his name. Eventually we heard him miaowing in reply and were able to track down where he was shut in."

It's worth stressing again that many "lost" cats are actually stuck in some way. Healthy adult cats very rarely get lost in the sense of not knowing where home is unless they have been moved away from familiar surroundings (for example escaping while en route to the vet). Even when a cat has been badly frightened (e.g. by a dog or by fireworks) he or she will normally hide and try to work their way back home once things have settled down. This may not be possible if the cat has crossed some kind of barrier, such as a busy road or a fence that can only be jumped in one direction. Cats who have some kind of illness (e.g. epilepsy) which causes them to become disorientated may stray and need to be confined.  Un-neutered tom cats will wander over great distances and probably do know where home is, but won't "check-in" very regularly. They may be prevented from returning home if a more ferocious male takes over the land where their house is situated. This is one of the reasons why neutering has such a positive effect in prolonging the life of a male cat.

Comparing our site statistics for lost and found cats it's extremely striking that more than half of our incoming injured male strays are entire while less than a third of male cats reported missing are un-neutered (and those are mainly kittens).

Animal shelter management books

Shelter Medicine, by Lila Miller and Stephen Zawistowski, is a comprehensive textbook on the veterinary aspects of running a successful animal shelter and as such it's quite heavy-going and technical. It's organised as stand-alone chapters on various aspects of shelter management and is a book to dip into repeatedly rather than read cover to cover. That said, it's much more than just a textbook for veterinary staff with an interest in animal centres and would benefit anyone working in, or on the management committee of, an animal rescue organisation. In addition to purely veterinary aspects of animal care it also includes chapters on cruelty prosecutions, foster care, spay/neuter clinics, animal behaviour, feral cat control and animal rescue in disaster situations. 

It's written for use in America, so readers need to be aware that the legal situation will often be different in the UK, and there will be differences in the prevalence of some animal diseases (we are extremely fortunate that rabies is not normally a concern over here). If there's a similar book designed for the UK, I've not yet found it, so this is probably the best available text in spite of that drawback. 

Infectious Disease Management in Animal Shelters, by Lila Miller and Kate Hurley is a more narrowly defined book than Shelter Medicine and focuses only on control of disease in shelters. 

More dog accidents

Caution about leaving children and dogs together works both ways. Very young children don't know their own strength relative to small puppies and they can very easily drop them because they're not as co-ordinated as an older child or adult.

Last night's staffie puppy with difficulty breathing turned out to have several broken ribs, probably because he'd either been dropped or helped onto something like a high table and then fallen off. Staffies often don't react to pain by squealing the way other breeds might, and this one's owners only realised there was a problem because the little fellow was gasping for breath because half of his lungs wasn't working any longer.

This sort of thing is also why rats and hamsters aren't really suitable for very young children. Being dropped can badly hurt or kill them, and they will bit really hard if little hands clutch them too tight. Adult cats who like children are probably the best bet with toddlers as they're robust enough not to get hurt (and fast and strong enough to get away from an excessively enthusiastic child).

Vet School family fun day: 21 March 14:00 - 17:00

Come and see a fully functional hospital for four-legged patients. Visit the Imaging Department, Small and Large Animal wards, Intensive Care Unit, theatre suite and much more. Guided tours available. There will be plenty of 'hands-on' displays but remember the patients are sick so you won't be able to play with them! No dogs, please.

Location:
The Queen's Veterinary School Hospital
Madingley Road
Cambridge
CB3 0ES

View map

All ages, no booking required. Children must be accompanied by an adult.

The Vet School provide our clinic's veterinary services, so this is an opportunity to take a look "behind the scenes". The family fun day is part of Cambridge University's Science Festival

The Feral Cat Manual

Published by the Feline Advisory Bureau, The Feral Cat Manual is probably the best and most comprehensive guide to helping feral cats available in the UK. It's used by SNIP International and other groups for their training workshops.

Puppies and dummies

This happens more often than you might think. Also here, here and here. The victims are usually puppies, presumably because larger dogs are either more cautious about what they swallow or more likely to pass something relatively small and soft through their intestines without getting a blockage. 

Unfortunately if the puppy does get an obstruction as a result of swallowing a baby's dummy or a bottle's rubber teat it will die if not operated on as an emergency and the operation is likely to be very expensive.

Another one this morning; a Jack Russell terrier. The puppy's too ill to wait for the clinic session tomorrow and isn't eligible for our clinic's emergency cover because he's not registered. Even with our maximum level of help the owner's now got a bill of £500 to cover. She may get some help from the Blue Cross and has now filled in a form to register with the PDSA (I don't know whether they might help retrospectively). 

Parvo again

Yet another rottie pup with parvovirus. Village Vets think there's a chance of saving him, so he's gone to their 24 hour surgery at Milton as an inpatient where they can quarantine him from other dogs. Blue Cross and PDSA are also chipping in as this kind of isolation nursing is horribly expensive.

Members and Supporters?

One of the links at the side of this blog goes to the page where you can apply for membership of the RSPCA. Adult members receive the society magazine Animal Life several times a year and have voting rights at both local and national level. Local branches are sent lists of members within their areas so that they can send out notices of their Annual General Meeting.

Confusingly, it is possible to have signed up to make regular donations to the RSPCA without ever having filled in a membership application. Unfortunately this means that significant numbers of people think of themselves as RSPCA members but don't get any of the papers which would keep them in touch with what's happening at grassroots level. 

If you make regular donations, but don't get Animal Life then you're not listed as a member and that's why your local branch has never tried to contact you. If you follow the link to the RSPCA membership page, you'll see that there are two types of members: ordinary and friend. "Friends" used to be the term for donors who hadn't registered as members. If you know you are a Friend and you'd like to become active in your local branch but they've never been in touch, you probably became a donor before the change. If you contact HQ at Horsham, they should be able to convert your status into voting membership.

Stray rabbit

ACO Kathy has just picked up a stray rabbit from Cambridge. She (the rabbit, not Kathy!) is a very pretty white and black Netherland Dwarf - looks young and is quite friendly. Janine is looking after her for the moment, but hopefully her owner will turn up.

Branch committees

If you think you might be interested in standing for our committee this year there's still time. Branch committees are elected each year by the local branch members at the Annual General Meeting. In our case, this is normally late June, as branch accounts and an annual report on the previous year have to be available at the AGM, and ours haven't usually been audited by our accountants until early June. 

To stand for election, you need to have been a member of the RSPCA for a minimum of three months prior to the AGM (this is mainly to make it possible to ensure there's time for everyone eligible to have got onto the membership lists and been circulated with the correct AGM papers.) Before the AGM the existing committee circulate a notice of the time and place to all branch members and include nomination forms so that members can put candidates forward for election. Members of the RSPCA automatically become members of the branch where they live, unless they ask to join a different one - for example the branch where they work.

To form a committee the AGM must elect at least seven and not more than fourteen people. As it's quite hard to get as many as fourteen volunteers willing to stand, most of the time we want the meeting to vote in everyone who comes forward and is prepared to work. It's not absolutely unknown for elections to be hotly contested, but it usually only happens where there is some point of principle at issue - for example whether or not to keep a particular branch facility open.

If you think you are a member of the RSPCA and have never been circulated with AGM papers it's likely that you are actually a "supporter" instead. In this case, if you want to become involved with your local branch, the best thing to to is to contact RSPCA HQ at Horsham and ask to be switched from the supporter category to the adult member one.

Working for change

There's a growing movement in the US and Australia to press animal shelters to adopt the principles of "no-kill": basically a rejection of the idea that the majority of "unwanted" pets will have to be killed because there are far more strays than potential homes. 

One element of the strategy is to encourage voluntary animal welfare organisations to relinquish what we in this country would refer to as "the stray dogs contract" unless they can realistically aim to place all, or nearly all, animals capable of being adopted. In other words, animal welfare organisations ought not to spend funds doing society's dirty work by killing unwanted pets and so diverting money from saving animals.

This became RSPCA policy in the UK some two decades ago, and is the default position for all its branches. It was possible because of our peculiar organisation structure which means that animal welfare policy decided by the national governing council can be imposed on the branches countrywide.

It hasn't meant that no healthy animals are ever killed because they are unwanted, but the evidence suggests that a much higher percentage of animals are successfully rehomed than in the US. The 2007 Animal Welfare Indicators report collating statistics on a range of animal issues records that the RSPCA (overall) rehomed just over 70,000 animals and put down just under 4,000 for non-medical reasons (the lowest figure for five years). [Pet animal welfare indicators]

Working at arms length from the local authority pounds and shelters has its critics and means that some people will be very unhappy because there is a group of very visible animals in need and the RSPCA is not taking all of them. 

Unfortunately this can result in a vicious circle in which the branch limits its intake of animals because it has limited resources but has difficulty recruiting helpers to increase its resources so it can take more animals because people are angry about the animals who weren't taken in. Two members of the Sheffield forum say:

Q. "Looking at this thread and the earlier one about the RSPCA do I assume that we the people of Sheffield, who support the local RSPCA branch have no say in its running, or how they spend the money that we donate, does this place not have a committie that leads/gives direction to the staff ?. could we not as either a group or as individuals, contact this committie and ask them to change their direction, does the overall RSPCA headquaters at Horsham direct the local branch to this course of action ?.

How does one get onto the local committie, to try and change things, or is it a closed shop like most of these societies seem to be, anyone know ?"

A. "I wish i did know Shytalk. All i know is that people should become aware of the things the RSPCA do and DON'T do before supporting instead of just what they DO do. I am not saying they shouldn't support the RSPCA but theres many small rescue centres out there that save 100s of dogs each year from being put to sleep when they have been in pounds for a long period of time on very low funds due to people not knowing about them as most of the time the rescues are only small and arent pleading for support on television, they make do with what they have and ask around for help, they get it and make the most of it.

I would love to know how to persuade them to help pounds and rescue centres. There's been no luck so far."

Ultimately if you don't like the way your local branch is being run, you can join the RSPCA and stand for election against us. Or you can join and stand for election to work with us. We're not a closed shop and no-one will object to newcomers who want to work to increase the number of animals we can help. What can be a problem is if new recruits have a very limited agenda and want to close down existing services to release funds for their particular pet projects. There isn't much point increasing rehoming if you abandon animals who already have owners but will have to be put to sleep if there is no available veterinary help.

Can a vet refuse treatment because an owner has no money?

Yes, and No. The RCVS (Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons) which sets standards for vets in the UK states:

17. A veterinary surgeon or a lay member of staff accepting telephone calls must not refuse veterinary attention because the caller is unable to make immediate payment for the treatment. Arrangements for payment should be discussed at an early stage, but immediate first aid and pain relief should not be delayed while financial arrangements are agreed.

18. The RCVS is aware that it may be appropriate to advise euthanasia to relieve suffering, if the owner is unable to afford the fees and is ineligible for charitable treatment.

19. The RCVS has no power to set the fees that a practice charges.

Basically, this means that a vet shouldn't refuse to relieve an animal's suffering in an emergency situation BUT they are under no obligation to provide expensive life-saving treatment if there is no likelihood that they (or their employer) will be paid.

In the old days, when most vets were self-employed, many of them would do what they could for an animal and hope the owner would eventually settle up. It is much more difficult for a young vet who may not have a job next day if he costs his employer money. Add in the crippling levels of student debt which most young vets will have after qualifying and you'll see that they are in an enormously difficult situation if a client turns up with a dog who really needs £800 worth of investigations and treatment but has no money at all.

One of these turned up at 3 am this Sunday morning. The client's dog had collapsed and was pale and shocked. They weren't registered with our clinic, so they had to go to a private vet. Because of the time factor they'd run up a bill of about £130 simply by virtue of walking through the door. They'd got no money at all, and at this point the vet phoned me. Sadly there's just no way we could cover £800 for investigations that might well just reveal treatment would be futile. I offered to cover £200 in the hope that symptomatic treatment might do some good — basically this would mean starting some supportive fluids and antibiotics, but about an hour later they phoned to say the owners had decided the best thing was to put the dog to sleep.