Friday, September 20, 2013

Pics of the spiffy new signage at RSPCA Cambridge Burleigh Street Shop

"Pub sign" to make the shop visible to people facing
parallel to the frontage

Frontage

The whole ensemble 
Right-hand window with new displays

Left-hand window 
Close-up of mannequin

Display stand for bric-à-brac

Fantastic Monsoon dress

Rabbit interest group???




Would anyone in the Cambridge, Ely or Newmarket area be interested in joining a branch rabbit welfare group?

Our inspector has asked the branch if we can try to increase our rabbit fostering because of the growing number of rabbit welfare cases he needs to place for rehoming. 

We're looking for people who would consider fostering rabbits, and also for experienced rabbit carers who might be able to help and support new fosterers and anyone who could help with putting up rabbit runs.

Rabbits are very popular pets but they are extremely difficult to care for to a high welfare standard, so it's important that foster setups which adopters will be viewing should be setting a good example. If we're insisting that adopters must have runs which are at least 8 ft long we can't be seen to be keeping rabbits in smaller accommodation ourselves.

Unfortunately this means that any rabbit housing we provide to foster homes is likely to be of the hefty wood and mesh flat-pack variety and will need a fair amount of DIY skills to set it up and a suitable area of level grass or concrete for the site. Most of the best commercial runs were originally designed for poultry so will need under-wiring as rabbits will dig out of any run that doesn't have a base.

As we would order and pay for the hutches and runs used by rabbit foster carers we would request that anyone offering to help in this way intends to continue fostering for a reasonable length of time because this type of housing is difficult to dismantle and re-use elsewhere.

If you might be interested in helping with this, please email info@rspca-cambridge.org.uk




Thursday, September 19, 2013

The nightmare that is the current dog breeding situation

We've had yet another dog owner whose pet needs an urgent operation likely to cost at least £250 in order to save her life at our clinic today. She has two week old puppies who are having to be hand-reared and her condition is causing her extreme pain (which could probably have been avoided if she'd been brought to us more quickly). 

He's made no provision at all for the possible costs of something going wrong during her pregnancy and if we weren't here it's likely that she would either have to be euthanased to end her suffering or would die miserably.

This kind of thing is mostly ignorance, not deliberate cruelty, but it is just so frustrating that it could have been avoided by a spay operation which would have cost just £55 via our clinic.