The RSPCA made us feel like criminanls

Yeah, right, so us horse riders are all "crims" then coz we all (or at least the majority of us) carry whips to beat our horses to death with............. we bung metal bits in their gobs and slap nasty horrible saddles on their backs - then we climb aboard the poor things, and horror-of-horrors make them jump big nasty fences and get all hot and sweaty. Blimey, some of us wear barbaric metal spurs as well. Then there are others of us who chase our poor horses into metal boxes and transport them all over the place, etc etc. The awfulness never ends :)

Jeez, we better all be careful. Look out the RSPCA are watching YOU.

I wish I was joking......but I know I'm not. Coz one day soon they'll get around to us. It already started when they started interfering with country life and came down on a certain side in the foxhunting debate. But don't let me get started on that one.
 
They have their good and their bad points, but I have serious doubts about current RSPCA behaviour, dragging ridiculous cases to court that cost thousands of pounds of donors' money.

When possible I try to use specialist charities like The Dogs' Trust, or find associations which look after that particular species or breed. They are more knowledgeable, more realistic and often far more helpful.
 
Moomin1 said:
Yes, but in this case it clearly wasn't adequate was it?
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Exactly and leaving an animal to suffer is a criminal offence.

It makes me so so cross that stories like these hit the headlines but all the good work that is done every single day is never mentioned. I know there is some controversy with the head honchos but it must be soul destroying for the branch staff and those out in the field who work hard hearing things like this all the time

Also flea allergies are pretty common how can a competent owner not know about it as a possibility??
 
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This is what I dont get, yes that GSD owner was ignorant in buying stuff over the counter, the RSPCA should have told her to take it to a vet now not flaming prosecute. Then you get the flood ponies who are supposedly being monitored by the RSPCA and they are in a terrible state and they RSPCA are doing nothing. I just dont get it.:mad:
 
Incidentally (okay, totally off on a tangent), does the RSPCA have any powers to prosecute foreign visitors to the UK who have committed acts of cruelty on animals here? Has that ever happened, or are the legal complexities just too daunting?
 
fburton said:
Incidentally (okay, totally off on a tangent), does the RSPCA have any powers to prosecute foreign visitors to the UK who have committed acts of cruelty on animals here? Has that ever happened, or are the legal complexities just too daunting?
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Also as an aside to this point, I heard mention on TV of a performing animals act which may well cover foreign nationals in this one area.
It didn't sound very robust or up to date.

ps. My personal view is all these animal acts need bringing up to date. The basis that animals are chattels must be looked at.
 
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Alec Swan said:
There is no compunction upon an animal owner to consult a vet, providing that an attempt is made at adequate treatment.

Alec.
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fburton said:
Is this really true, Alec? I mean in the sense that there is legislation. :(
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Legislation doesn't cover failure. Providing that a genuine attempt is made at care, then that's viewed as good enough. I have sheep which I treat myself, generally; if I fail where a vet might have succeeded, then my attempt is considered to be enough. Neglecting to give any sort of remedy, be it professional or home-prepared, is where the owner leaves themselves open to prosecution.

Alec.
 
Moomin1 said:
Yes, but in this case it clearly wasn't adequate was it?
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Were the question of "Adequacy" the point at which prosecution was faced, then an attending vet who fails might also be considered inadequate. I'll repeat myself, "Providing an attempt is made at adequate treatment".


amandap, animals are as you described, "chattels", and whilst they can be bought and sold, they will and should remain so, in my view.

Alec.
 
Of course animals are chattels. They cannot look after themselves in a controlled situation, i.e. stabled, fenced land, kennel or home. They cannot be allowed to roam wherever they please, eating and living a "wild" life so they have to be owned, which makes them a chattel.
It is beyond me that this has to be pointed out. !!!!
 
Alec Swan said:
Legislation doesn't cover failure. Providing that a genuine attempt is made at care, then that's viewed as good enough. I have sheep which I treat myself, generally; if I fail where a vet might have succeeded, then my attempt is considered to be enough. Neglecting to give any sort of remedy, be it professional or home-prepared, is where the owner leaves themselves open to prosecution.

Alec.
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Actually, legislation DOES cover failure. Failure to provide an animal's needs. Also failing to prevent suffering. And the 'attempt' at doing so has to be a reasonable one. Any normal reasonable person, whose animal is going more and more bald, despite attempts at using (what I consider shockingly poor 'treatment' which should actually be taken off the shelves, along with the cheapy worming and defleaing treatment also) shampoo off the shelf, would have sought veterinary advice.

Also, none of us on here know exactly HOW bad this animal was. The story the owner gives the press (and probably the RSPCA) may not be entirely true, in the sense of time scales, or even treatment used. It's hardly beyond the realms of possibility that someone lie in order to try and get out of a sticky situation. The dog may well have been in a shocking state, covered in sores, completely bald, suffering. So I think to judge from a one sided story from a biased news article is very narrow minded.
 
Moomin1 said:
.......

Also failing to prevent suffering. So an animal being treated by a vet, whilst it continues to suffer, is ok with the rspca whilst an animal, in a similar state of suffering, whilst being treated by its owner, is wrong, is it?

And the 'attempt' at doing so has to be a reasonable one. I've used the word "genuine", you prefer "reasonable", but it all boils down to you supporting this aspect of my argument.

So I think to judge from a one sided story from a biased news article is very narrow minded. As one sided as your laudable but futile support of the rspca, and its current stance.
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Moomin, I've asked before, and you've yet to answer me, "Does the senior management of the rspca, and Gavin Grant in particular have your unqualified support"? I realise that the question puts you on a spot, and that isn't really my intention, but you've lambasted me in the past for my views, and I feel that I've the right to ask you to qualify yours. If you feel unable to answer, then most would reasonably conclude that in fact he does NOT enjoy your unquestioning support. If you hang on his every word, then say so.

On the subject of the blogs and movements which are attempting to bring about change within the rspca, and get the self promoting Gavin Grant removed, there are accusations being levelled which the rspca can easily defend, because in part some are misleading and inaccurate, so I see them as pointless. The problem is serious enough and the evidence clear enough, without offering up red-herrings which will allow for filibustering.

Despite the denials, it would seem evident that the rspca have reported the QC Jonathan Rich to the Bar Council, on numerous occasions. That's without doubt, I'd have thought, but to accuse the rspca for being responsible for the suicide of Dawn Ward, when none but those professionals who dealt with her will have had any idea as to her mental state, is resorting to highly speculative tactics. The evidence of wrong doing is enough, without resorting to a questionable smear campaign.

Alec.
 
Moomin1 said:
Yes, but in this case it clearly wasn't adequate was it?
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Thew FACT is that sometimes veterinary treatment isn't 'adequate' either!! A girl who works for me has a youngster that has suffered terrible hair loss and scratching for months. She has spent hundreds of pounds on treatment and diagnostics by vets - which achieved NO improvement. She finally treated it with a herbal remedy recommended by a friend and it is now healing!

The striking thing about all the prosecutions mentioned in that article is that they were all pretty small scale cases which picked on vulnerable individuals for relatively minor cases of suffering. So WHY aren't the RSPCA prosecuting the owner of the horses that were originally suffering on flooded land in Gloucestershire and are still suffering now in Wales??? Probably because it's a hard one - that will cost RSPCA a lot of money - and the guilty party is known NOT to have substantial assets to claim costs from??

I recall a particularly petty attempt by the RSPCA some years ago to prosecute a lady who was in a nursing home, suffering severe dementia, because the person who was MEANT to be looking after her horses hadn't (and had disappeared.) Despite the state of the unfortunate owner, the RSPCA continued to threaten prosecution because in her rare moments of lucidity, she refused to sign the horses over to the RSPCA! Finally the BHS Head of Welfare at the time managed to head off the RSPCA and get the old dear to sign the horses over to BHS - and got the RSPCA to drop the threats of prosecution.
 
Hopefully the law defines animal chattels and differentiates between them and non living chattels. I don't view my animals in the same light as my car or my sofa!
 
amandap said:
Hopefully the law defines animal chattels and differentiates between them and non living chattels. I don't view my animals in the same light as my car or my sofa!
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Sadly the law does if your horse or dog is stolen. Until that's changed, it seems a bit rum to insist on treating it more than a chattel when in the owners possession, a bit unfair really, which is why it is time that the law was changed to recognise the special nature of companion animals and come down blinking hard both on those who neglect them (after warnings) but Also those who steal them from loving owners.
 
lachlanandmarcus said:
Sadly the law does if your horse or dog is stolen. Until that's changed, it seems a bit rum to insist on treating it more than a chattel when in the owners possession, a bit unfair really, which is why it is time that the law was changed to recognise the special nature of companion animals and come down blinking hard both on those who neglect them (after warnings) but Also those who steal them from loving owners.
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Loving the use of the word rum here
 
It's all a 'rum do' and a total mess as far as I can see. Unfair pursuit of owners and animals left for months to suffer at the other extreme.
 
amandap said:
It's all a 'rum do' and a total mess as far as I can see. Unfair pursuit of owners and animals left for months to suffer at the other extreme.
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I don't think it's unfair to pursue owners which neglect their animals at all. As for all these articles which include owners who 'claim' that they are innocent and 'love' their animals, but just 'didn't get time' to take them to the vet etc etc, and that it was just a 'minor injury/flea infestation', well I'm afraid I don't swallow that rubbish and see these excuses day in day out - it's THE common excuse.
 
Moomin1, I was talking about the law in general. However, I have read so many stories about apparent unfair persuit over recent times I have to assume some have truth in them re RSPCA.
 
RSPCA not doing very well at the moment, between this report and the report regarding Poppet the pony who was in a terrible state and they wouldn't take in leaving the pony with someone who was a good Samaritan and had called them because they wouldn't be able to treat a pony that was at deaths door, to be told by the RSPCA because they rescued it, they were responsible for it!!!
Afraid I stopped by donations to them years ago and help the local charities that use it for helping the animals instead of publicity campaigns.
 
Of course not webble, it leaves those of us with no exprience of welfare orgs trying to sort out agenda (on all sides) from truth.
 
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