RSPCA bashing

nuffield

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It seems to me to in vogue to blame the RSPCA for animal abuse.
i'd like to make 2 points
firstly the recent south wales case where an ex-RSPCA market inspecter has signed some TBs over to another charity.
As far as I am aware this person is elderly and if he has dementia and/or oher problems then its easy to see how the horses became neglected. This does not excuse the neglect.
he is an ex rspca inspector. maybe he was asked to leavehis post? or maybe he was ok and just retired some time ago. he is not currently employed by them.
There but by the grace of God go I..........any of us could end up in his shoes, when age and infirmaty strike and we dont have full control of our faculties.
Secondly, the RSPCA can only act within the law. They need a police warrant to enter premises and hard evidence. They must get a frustrated as the rest of us.
Also just think for a minute, where would we be without them? No funny replies please, they do a great job rehoming unwanted and neglected animals , not just horses.
 
I think the 'bashing' as you put it just comes from the sheer frustration of people who themselves have dealt with an organisation that just seems (in so many cases) to do too little too late.

Many of us have also dealt direct with the RSPCA on things we were concerned about to get little or no response. Mollymurphy on here has broken her heart on more than one occassion over a couple of horses that the RSPCA will just not take action on - despite a clear need to do so. In fact, one of her reported incidents ended with the death of one youngster.

Sorry, but the bashing will continue whilst this organisation continues to be so apathetic.
 
Totally agree with Amymay... but I think it is the law that needs changing. My last experience with the RSPCA resulted in being told that they couldnt do anything about 3 horses "dumped" on my yards land without water, and very little food, unless they had been there 3 weeks???? WTF, three weeks without water, dead horses!
 
[ QUOTE ]
It seems to me to in vogue to blame the RSPCA for animal abuse.
i'd like to make 2 points
firstly the recent south wales case where an ex-RSPCA market inspecter has signed some TBs over to another charity.
As far as I am aware this person is elderly and if he has dementia and/or oher problems then its easy to see how the horses became neglected. This does not excuse the neglect.
he is an ex rspca inspector. maybe he was asked to leavehis post? or maybe he was ok and just retired some time ago. he is not currently employed by them.
There but by the grace of God go I..........any of us could end up in his shoes, when age and infirmaty strike and we dont have full control of our faculties.
Secondly, the RSPCA can only act within the law. They need a police warrant to enter premises and hard evidence. They must get a frustrated as the rest of us.
Also just think for a minute, where would we be without them? No funny replies please, they do a great job rehoming unwanted and neglected animals , not just horses.

[/ QUOTE ]

They had been negotiating with the owner for a considerable length of time.
If this owner is elderly and has health problems surely the rspca should have taken control of the situation before letting it get out of hand and waiting 8 months!!!
Too little too late again i`m afraid.
 

I hope that the RSPCA are taking on board the public opinion in the hope that it makes them and their polices more effective and accountable if they are not implemented correctly I have no desire whats so ever to be in vouge, but can only speak from personal experience as a horse lover when having to report on several ocassions, a severe case of cruelty and knew nothing had been done, even when 2 mares in foal died and 2 foals died, this was at a quite well known breeders in their area. And with most us would say was amazing facilites. It just shows what goes on behind closed doors, also in my work capacity, when people have bee sent to custody, they informed me that they have pets at home. The frustration and anger that fills when they say " There is nothing we can do try a local charity or see if a family member can help out "

I would loved to be proved wrong because it would mean that more animals are being helped. I am only speaking from my personal experience.

I think alot of animal welfare begains at home and we all know people who take in stray's, unwanted horse's, etc I think these people are the unsung hero's of animal welfare.

PS It would be lovely to hear a positive story that someone may have about the RSPCA to try and re-address the balance.
 
There is absolutely no excusses for neglect and cruelty .........the story said this person was offered advice from eight months...............so why was the foel so ill it died 24 hours before help arrived...............why wasnt this situation monitored if they were aware of it 8 MONTHS BEFORE???????
 
The RSPCA is simply a charity, funded by those who donate to it. It is not a government department, or part of the UK legal system. RSPCA staff cannot even enter premises legally without the owners’ permission. The RSPCA cannot prosecute anyone under the Animal Welfare Act 2006.

I can understand those who donate to the RSPCA thinking they have some right to offer advice on how that money should be spent. I fail to see how any non-donor is entitled to offer any advise whatsoever on what the RSPCA should do.

When you have read and inwardly digested the Animal Welfare Act 2006, and the other acts which it invokes, perhaps you would be so good as to advise us all, with your profound inside knowledge of what the RSPCA have already done in a particular case, what they should have additionally done.

As is often the case on these threads, a lot of people with virtually no knowledge of either the law, or the circumstances surrounding a case, think they "know better", and that all those involved in a case are uncaring, unthinking, incompetent, idiots. Don't you think most of the people involved might actually be rather caring individuals, with some competence in these matters?

The RSPCA does have the experience that goes with answering 3,000 calls per DAY, so perhaps just might be acting rather better than you could/would.

An awful lot of people on these forums seem to have the attitude of "Don't confuse me with the facts; I know what I want to believe."

P.S. Any chance that some individuals could show some care for their readers by running a spell/grammar check before posting?
 
When you make a post - if not replying to a particular one - just QR at the beginning, and everyone will know that you are making a general observation.
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From my experience of the rspca maybe the problem is partly due to the inspectors that they employ and their experince/background. I was reported to them a few years ago for having a pony in a field with very little grazing and alot of weeds. the pony was very overweight, which the inspector thought was through starvation !!! We resolved it by getting an independant vet who I agreed to pay for if he backed up the rspca but instead he laughed at them !
Since living where I am now I have had 3 dealings with them, twice when i found an injured owl and a bird of prey that both died and last year when an inspector turned up as someone had reported an injured calf in a field next to my house. I asked him what he thought was wrong with the calf to be told that he didn't want to go to close as was scared of cows and wouldn't know what to look for anyway. I got chatting to this man and he turned out to be the inspector who covers the common rides in the borders to check on how the horses are treated. He freely admitted that he knew next to nothing about horses and was scared of them as well. I would think that they get alot of applicants for the inspectors jobs but certainly from my experience they know VERY little.
 
No, totally disagree, RSPCA from MY OWN EXPERIENCE over the last 15 years are useless, policital gains are far more important to them.

They still try to take glory over rescue operations when ultimately they have not done all the work.

They are heavy top management, costing much more than they need to.

The reason people are on "the band wagon" is because of Amersham being such a relevant example of their lack of get up and go and DEAL with the issue, not just through red tape restrictions, and also people have HAD ENOUGH of the RSPCA portraying themselves as such importantance in the world of animal cruelty and protection, when ultimately they are always too soft, too late and not really much use, YET receive the lions share of the dim publics donations.

Rant over

Oh well not quite!!

Some of inspectors are genuine caring but I dont think many of the ones that deal with any equine issues have a ruddy clue about horses! that IS from PERSONAL EXPERIENCE...not a clue, they need more training and experience. Not a clue!
 
QR

Firstly, I do not jump onto bandwagons. I don't join 'the gang' because it is the 'in thing' to do.
Again, personal experience for me. I acknolwedge that the RSPCA are restricted in many ways by the Law of the Land, that many are very genuine caring people.I also appreciate that of their 3000 calls per day many are pretty much time wasting calls, that have to be sorted from the genuine emergency cases, much like the Police, Fire and Ambulance services. However, the problem stems from the top, where too much money is going and not enough thinking/planning done. Some of their self-imposed rules need to be revised because their stupidty and rigidity is holding them back space and money wise, from helping other needy animals, and from providing essential large-animal training.

On one occasion when dealing with an Inspector, the man was afraid of getting a spot of dirt on his sleeve.

Ho-hum - disappears before I start writing War & Peace!!
 
Personlly, I dont mind that they try to do too much and dont do anything well.
I understand they have to act within the law and sometimes may not be able to act untill damage is done.
I see perfectly well that they can only act on issues reported to them and must walk away if all seems well.

What pi55es me off is the attitude!
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How on earth can you be any judge of a horse/pony if you are frightened of them or have no knowledge of them??
How can you tell then owners how to look after a dog when you have no clue yourself?

They have tried to prosicute me because my mothers dog(in my care) was thin,
Yes,she was a skelington,they should have seen her when we FOUND her.RSPCA wouldnt take her in,not enough room.Nor would any of the local resuce plaes we would have been able to take her to so we ended up stuck with her.
A friend called me in fits of giggles today,a RSPCA inspector has been sent round about her greyhound(probably because she asked neighbours to keep noise down at 3 am but hey ho) and she has been told it's too skinny.It's a greyhound that has has been out of racing 3 weeks...hell thats no excuse for a skinny dog see you in a month
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Sure there are some decent folk working for the RSPCA who DO care,but they are far outnumbered by morons and the ones who only care about colom inches.
 
I can only speak from my own experience. I have in my time rung the RSPCA twice; once to report the living conditions of some bullocks, and more recently to report a tethered horse, on common land, which had tied itself round a tree and was panicking. The RSPCA chose not to take any action in either case.
 
Oh how I can sympathise - I had a fit, well, very fir TB gelding - end of the hunting season and one day the RSPCA man appeared and demanded to inspect my horse because a complain had been made that he was kept in a stable 24/7 & was pitifully thin.......... clearly a complete fool, he was even too scared to go into the stable and I had to takes the rugs off and explain that horses do not get that fit in a stable and if he was always in a stable who knew he was 'thin'!! I also asked if this could be anything to do with the fact that the horse hunted.......!
 
People will speak as they find, I have found them to be useless in the past for whatever reason, if you want to class that as "jumping on the rspca bashing bandwagon" then fine, but they wont get another penny of my money, neither will any other charity as you dont have to dig very deep to see too many suits and ties milking it.
 
Hi Pedantic, I enjoy your posts. Wonder who is more pedantic - thee or me?
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Any chance you could consider donating your charity contributions to the smaller, struggling, charities, instead of the "Big-boys"?

In smaller horse related charities, the paid staff and trustees are more likely to be found up to their ankles in gg poo, wearing £5 jeans and £3 tops, not suits and ties, and worrying whether the funds for the next bag of feed will materialize in time.

It's not the small amounts of money paid by the big charities to their suits and ties that bothers me too much; it's more the proportioin of income they transfer to their reserves each year, and the amounts they pay for governance and financial advice.
 

Has anyone seen the program RSPCA the front line??

Well watched it today about a case with a horse who had an absess in its neck...These inspectors thought it had strangles as well as the vet.... NONE of them even suited themselves up, disenfected nadda nought.....Well that nade the blood boil...
Then one admited when joining the RSPCA she had NO experience in dealing with any sort of animal, dogs scared her!!!!....Blood boils even more
THEN to top it all they are wanting the vet that delt with the horse and absess (which was not strangles in the end) to find something that could be condoned as cruelty (well left in a field for weeks and weeks with puss pouring out of its neck, is not a form of cruelty?????) as she admitted they have no powers to remove horses or report an owner or do anything about it unless a vet can say YES it is cruelty...

This to me sums this farce of an orginization up!!!
 
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Nope, still not enough.
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When I rescued Bonnie Bon-Bons 18 months ago, the vets arrived just in time to save her life. They advised me to report the breeder to the RSPCA, however as the breeder had signed her over to me then she was officially mine and therefore I was at great risk of being proscecuted by the RSPCA for neglect and starvation
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Just to remind you what she looked like ...

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I like to think I have an open mind and try not to be judgemental. I have yet to be convinced that a damned good shake up isnt called for.
 
I called them about this lad who had managed to get out of his field and onto the road, he was emaciated, there were 2 dead horses on the drive to the house of the people he belonged to and an emaciated mare in the same field as him (who had also gotten out onto the road).
That area Is the yard at the back of my house where i put him to stop him getting hit by a car (we were in the middle of post and railing the field, luckily my horses had gone to some other grazing whislt we did it). I then had my vet up at my expense. my vet said he had a heart murmur due to malnutrition and had been starved. The RSPCA said there were no clear signs of neglect or abuse! It took a further 6 months before a friend of mine managed to pursuade his owners to sell him and even then the old owners made my friends life hell for about a year afterwards (thefts, caravans going missing ponies being let out onto the roads, kids chucking bricks at the ponies)
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Does anyone watch channel 5??? There is show called um something like 'animal rescue frontline' (sorry bsenior moment cant think what its called)
Yesterday-Thurs there was a horse who the rspca wanted the vet to sanction its removal. They wanted to prosecute the owner for neglect due to an abcess on its neck. The vet wouldnt back the rspca and the girl was quite stroppy about it. It turned out that the horse had strangles and was on its own due to this fact! As we are all aware you wait for the abcess to 'pop' you dont go picking it!! The owner had removed the horse from the vacinity of other horses, it was well fed and rugged up.
My experience with the rspca leaves me with a low opinion of them. When tv cameras are rolling they want to help every animal yet several times when I have called them they have told me to leave it to nature if it dies it dies! If it was not for some dedicated people by me then little animals would have been left to die with the permission of the rspca. Sorry but I wouldnt spit on them if they were on fire.[[
 
mixed one here. we were out driving round the lanes one night and came across an injured badger. managed to trap it and appart from a dodgy looking leg it appeared ok. called the RSPCA who actully did come out and took the badger. I had a call from them at 2 am (???) saying the badger had a broken lag so they'd put it down. Now I applaud them for coming out but.... there are wild life sanctuaries out there that know how to deal with wild animal accidents and rehabilitation. why did they not pin the badgers leg send it to on eof the sanctuarys - Tiggywinkles comes to mind - who would nurse it back to health and then release it again with the minimum of human contact.

because it was easier to put it down.
 
maybe we should all write this all down and send it to rspca and say how we all feel about them..
i can't stand the rspca... i really can't useless buch of people.. who like to glam them selfs up, saying they do all this gd in the world for theses animals when in fact they don't do s***
 
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