Vet In Harness's blog

The RSPCA - What is it for?

Last week Mary Bale, a woman from Coventry, was convicted in a prosecution brought by the RSPCA of causing unnecessary suffering to a cat by putting it in a wheelie bin in which it was then trapped for 15 hours. She received a fine of £250 and was ordered to pay £1,171 in costs. She has also been banned from keeping animals for five years. Many of you will remember the uproar when the CCTV footage of the incident was first posted online a couple of months ago. For the background to the story, see the BBC story, and the RSPCA press release.

Bystander, a magistrate blogger, complains about the size of the costs award and the special status of the RSPCA as prosecuting authority. The odd status of the RSPCA is something that has bothered me for a while, and which I really do feel is a problem for the charity and for animal welfare and protection in general in this country.

The RSPCA is an independent charitable body which (as they never tire from telling us when fundraising) receives no government funding, and has no statutory legal authority, but which nevertheless finds itself cast in the role of investigating and prosecuting authority for much animal welfare law in this country.

As well as their work in prosecuting cruelty cases, the RSPCA provides rescue and rehoming services, free and cut-price veterinary services to pet owners on low incomes through a variety of channels, provides some rescue and rehabilitation for wildlife casualties, and campaigns on issues of animal welfare including farm animal welfare, welfare of performing animals, agitates against blood sports, and funds overseas animal welfare projects. They also lobby on, and participate in consultations regarding the writing of animal welfare law in England and Wales, (for instance campaigning against badger culling). You can read more detail in the RSPCA Mission Statement.

Essentially the RSPCA is suffering from a huge identity crisis. Is it the Police? The Crime Prosecution Service? Social Services? An NHS for pets? The League Against Cruel Sports? Amnesty International (animal division)?

RSPCA Inspectors have no statutory powers, but you would be easily forgiven for believing otherwise on occasion when watching them at work. The RSPCA were interviewed quite revealingly on the subject for a Sunday Times article from July 2007, discussing the widespread perception that RSPCA Inspectors have powers of entry and seizure.  I can see why individual inspectors find this useful in getting their work done, and you certainly hear stories of them overstepping the mark in throwing their weight around. The adoption of police ranks and police-alike uniforms certainly help this public perception. Be in no doubt, then - RSPCA Inspectors have no power of entry to properties - unlike the TV licensing man, or the chap from the water board - and no power to seize your property (and animals in your possession *are* your property). Power of seizure is restricted to police, officers of the local authority and Animal Health officials (Hansard - Lords Questions - Feb 23, 2010). Prosecutions for animal cruelty brought by the RSPCA are private prosecutions, using the same legal powers that any citizen could wield, if they were minded to.

How, then, has the RSPCA ended up with this perception of pseudo-statutory powers and essentially established itself as the ultimate arbiter of animal welfare in England and Wales? I can only guess, but it seems partly that they've self-appointed themselves thus, and partly that the correct authorities are content to allow them to continue to do so out of laziness and a sense of lack of relevant knowledge and experience on their own parts. Incidentally - Trading Standards (the people at the local council who worry about whether the pound of spuds you bought at the market really *was* a pound, or who take on dodgy cowboy builders) are the enforcement authority for farm animal welfare.

In my day to day practicing life I come across the RSPCA in two main circumstances - the first being when inspectors ask my advice or bring animals to me for assessment and treatment. In general I have found individual RSPCA Inspectors I have met to be caring, competent and professional - however their priorities can be distorted, one assumes by central priorities. One particular Inspector, shortly after the partial docking ban was passed, was memorably much more interested in whether a sick puppy we were concerned about had a docked tail than about its perilous immediate state of health.

My other main interaction with them is when trying to arrange treatment and care for stray and injured animals brought in by members of the public. These animals generally come to the surgery after a concerned member of the public has phoned the RSPCA and been told to bring them to us. The process of caring for such patients is governed by a Memorandum of Understanding drawn up between the RSPCA and the BVA which sets out what treatment the RSPCA will fund, and how. This should make the process of organising emergency treatment nice and straightforward, however it's rarely that simple. It can take a number of hours of telephone tag and sitting on hold for our nurses or receptionists to get the critical 'Log Number' to allow us to start treatment, and getting the RSPCA to then take these stray animals into shelters once their medical needs have been met is, at least at the moment, nearly impossible. We are left, as a private practice, to try to find homes for these animals, or find local welfare and rescue organisations willing to take them on. In the meantime the poor animal is in one of our hospital cages - not appropriate long-term accommodation - and at potential risk from other sick animals in the practice. It is hard to find a single practicing Veterinary Surgeon who finds dealing with the RSPCA anything other than a profoundly difficult and frustrating experience - and many, believe me, have far less polite things to say than that…

So my question is this - today, in 2010, 186 years after it was first founded, what is the RSPCA for? What do people think they are funding when they put their pound or two in the collecting box, and how does that stack up against reality? I strongly believe that most people who are involved with the RSPCA, as employees, volunteers, campaigners and fundraisers, are genuinely guided by good intentions and are working very hard to do the best job they can. But which job? So little of their time and effort seems directed to what most people would probably regard as the 'core' role - providing emergency treatment and shelter for animals in need - and so much on political campaigning and their pseudo-statutory role in law enforcement.

It seems to me that we desperately need some clarity. My pipe dream? For investigations into animal welfare and abuse to be carried out and prosecuted by specialist teams working and funded within the normal police and criminal prosecution channels (though in the current public financial straights it seems sadly unlikely that the police would willingly take on extra work) and for the RSPCA to distinguish carefully between their rescue and rehabilitation and rehoming work, and their political campaigns.

And while that remains pie in the sky? I would just ask you to think carefully about the large amounts of money donated to animal charities in the UK every year. Decide where you actually want your hard-earned money going. Rescue and rehoming? There are wonderful, dedicated, local animal shelters and wildlife rehabilitation services up and down the country to whom you could donate - after all, that's where many stray and unwanted animals referred to the RSPCA are likely to end up anyway - or national organisations like the Cats Protection, Dogs Trust, and Redwings Horse Sanctuary. Charity veterinary treatment? Think about the Blue Cross. Political campaigning on animal welfare issues? You have a world of choice, from the sensible to the militant. And if you're interested in improving the health and veterinary care for animals all over the world, by increasing our clinical knowledge of conditions and treatments, please consider donating to Petsavers. Finally remember, most charities would much rather you donated your time and expertise than your money, so in these cash-strapped times do please consider volunteering!

As another firework season draws to a close, for now...

Those of you in the UK can't have failed to notice that it was Guy Faukes' Night recently, when we celebrate the fact 

Fireworks - not fun for everyone!

that a seventeenth century Catholic terrorist failed to blow up Parliament with several kegs of gunpowder, by burning him in effigy, setting fire to great piles of garden waste and permitting private individuals to play with explosives.

It's been a reasonably good year - none of my patients have been seriously physically injured, though several have gone missing.  In previous years I have had a labrador jump through a glazed patio door in his panic to escape from nearby fireworks.  Another literally climbed walls, pulling a radiator off it's fixings.  More commonly we see dogs and cats run away, often to return a few days later cold, wet, afraid and sometimes with significant injuries.  Some, sadly, do not return.

 

I really really cannot understand why, in this time of antisocial behaviour and anti-terror legislation, we haven't managed to ban the sale of explosive devices to unlicenced private individuals.  Fireworks are dangerous.  Used carelessly, in back gardens, in the hands of people with no appropriate training and without the recommended safety distances, they cause many injuries each year to adults and children.  Used maliciously, they cause fear, distress and injury to members of the public and the emergency services.  In the hands of professional pyrotechnics teams, at organised displays, they are an absolute joy.  I love fireworks.  But I see no reason whatsoever I should be allowed to deploy them in my garden!

 

Fear of fireworks in pets can be managed in a number of ways - dogs and cats with relatively mild anxiety can be helped by changes in their daily routine - taking them out for their last walk early, while it's still light, providing a safe indoor bolt-hole, keeping the TV or loud music on to muffle the sound of nearby explosions, and trying to behave as normally as possible, avoiding over-fussing or chastising worried animals.  Pharmaceutical approaches are available - pheromone diffusers are available for both dogs and cats and can be very helpful in some cases (and absolutely useless in others).  A new, non-sedative, anti-anxiety medication has come on the market this year which some of my clients have tried and been very impressed with.  Some dogs and cats do very well with the use of herbal remedies such as Skullcap and Valerian tablets, Valerian compound, or Rescue Remedy - but please please consult your vet before giving herbal medicines to your animals, just because they are 'natural' does not mean they are innocuous!  For the most seriously affected animals, who are at risk of injuring themselves or their owners, the use of sedatives is sadly unavoidable.

 

The most frightening sort of exposure to fireworks is a nearby explosion, overhead.  Exactly the sort that pets in built-up areas are exposed to when neighbours deploy (not necessarily particularly large or powerful) rockets in back gardens.  Be honest with yourself - I know there's a thrill to setting off backyard fireworks, but it's a pretty naff display compared to what you'll get at an organised display.  There are fantastic displays, often for charities, in just about every town and village in the country, so there are plenty of opportunities to get your firework fix.  Organised displays give the owners of anxious pets a chance to prepare and protect their pets for noise at a specified time, which is much easier than reacting to unexpected nearby explosions.  

 

So, next time you are tempted to buy fireworks, please think again, save yourself a few quid, and go to a wonderful organised display instead.  And if you have a pet who was stressed out by firework season, now is the time to contact your vet for advice - we seem to have fallen into a habit in this country of using fireworks for New Year over the past decade, so you have a month and a half to prepare your pet for the next round of pops and bangs.  Preparation is key, and starting a programme of noise desensitisation and behaviour modification now may well pay huge dividends come December 31st!

 

On career paths, moving on, kittens and textbooks.

I doubt anyone will really have noticed, but it's been a month and a half since I had anything to say for myself here.  On the off-chance that anyone reading here cares what I've been up to (or, indeed, that anyone is reading here at all!)  it's all change in Beth's world.  Very shortly I will be starting a new job, and moving away from mixed practice into small animal work.  Mainly dogs, cats, and rabbits, in other words, plus a few other pet-type-things, exotic animals and so on.  If it seems strange that I may be closing the door on over half my training this early in my career, my reasons are quite straightforward really. 

The mixed practice work I have been doing until now has been heavily small-animal biased, mostly as a consequence of being the most junior person in the practice and getting last-pick of the work.  The up-shot of this is more or less that despite doing mostly dog and cat work during the day, I still found myself on call being sent to colics, and dealing with lambings and so forth out of hours.  This really isn't a very good way to go about things, though a successful lambing is one of the great joys of veterinary work, and something I think I'll probably miss. 

The other aspect of wanting to make the move into small animal work is the question of the sheer volume of knowledge, not just that we have to have to graduate, but of constantly shifting new information, new techniques and new drugs with which we have to be familiar.  Mixed practice veterinary work is always going to be a compromise between depth and bredth of knowledge and competence.  For my own peace of mind I prefer to strive to be the best possible small animal veterinary surgeon I can be, rather than struggle to stay afloat spreading what meagre professional development time I have across every possible veterinary species.

Finally, a thought about mixed practice itself.  I suspect that in most parts of the UK mixed practice is not the future of the veterinary profession.  Already a great many mixed practices are either scaling down or giving their farm work up altogether.  The economics of farming in this country, and by extension of farm animal veterinary work, are not what you'd call favourable and in many cases, particularly where you have a reasonable density of livestock farms in the area, the most effective solution is specialist farm-animal only veterinary practices focusing heavily on health planning and preventative health care, significantly a consultancy role, and driving large distances to their clients rather than locally-based mixed practices providing essentially a fire-fighting service.   Meanwhile, the pressures of being a mixed practice in terms of staffing and the necessity of providing veterinary call-outs to farms at short notice throughout the working day (and night!) can detract from providing the best possible small animal provision, not to mention that in many cases the small animal work is expected to cross-subsidise frequently loss-making farm work.

Newborn-kittens

Anyway, enough of all that.  If you've read this far I'd like to reward you with a picture of some new-born kittens we delivered recently by caesarian section.  Very cute they were, too, and at suture removal mother and all three kittens were doing well.

Handbook of Veterinary Procedures and Emergency Treatment

Richard B. Ford

Finally, a book recommendation, on the very very very slim chance that anyone reading this is a clinical veterinary student - I have just discovered the book I *really wish* I'd had for my final year.  I cannot recommend "Kirk and Bistner's Handbook of Veterinary Procedures and Emergency Treatment" by Ford and Mazzaferro highly enough.  It has really immensely useful 'how to' guides to procedures from the simple to the really quite complicated, plus all sorts of useful reference guides including a really comprehensive guide to poisons and toxins, and the killer feature for a final-year text, differential lists for just about everything.  Paired up with the Merck Manual and a formulary, you've probably got just about everything you actually need as a small animal medicine reference, as long as you've got access to a veterinary library and a well-stocked copy-card! 

 

Midvale School for the Gifted (Cat)

Today I met the world's stupidest cat.  10 month old ginger recently-ex-tomcat.   Tablet time.  I had the cat tucked under my right arm, right thumb and forefinger lifting its head by the zygomatic arches to open its mouth with my left hand and put the pill in.  Just as I got the tablet past its teeth it got wise to the exercise and decided it wasn't having it.  Except, it got so distracted by the idea of ripping me to shreds that it swallowed the tablet in the process.  There it was, just on the tip of its tongue.  It's the first time I've ever seen a cat swallow a tablet given that far forward in the mouth!

Oh, and in the unlikely event that you were worried about me - don't be.  It only made contact with one claw, and drew a single drop of blood from one of my fingers.