To ask about your opinion on the RSPCA after Brian May resignation

@smithsmith32100 sadly, I’m not surprised. I have heard accounts like this so many times. So much for animal welfare being their primary concern. My local vets take in lost and abandoned animals. They provide any care they need immediately and then liaise with local rescues. I wonder how many other vets do this. It’s another port of call for us anyway.

RSPCA refused to help after I recently reported 3 neglected and abandoned kittens that I suddenly discovered next to my property.

They had been hiding in the bushes for over 4 days with no sign of the mother and no food source. They were not feral and seemed very domesticated. They appeared to have fleas and one of them had bad skin. Clearly in danger of starving and next to fairly busy road.

RSPCA refused to rescue them despite the fact they had been dumped outside my property. I got the distinct impression their call centre staff default to resist responding and I dread to think how many other abandoned animals they have refused to rescue.

I then tried Cats Protection and Battersea who put me on a 3 month waiting list despite the fact these kittens did not belong to me. Luckily I eventually found a different local animal charity to rescue them but it was quite shocking how none of these large animal welfare charities would help. I think they tend to disbelieve reports of abandoned animals and assume that people are instead trying to offload their own unwanted pets which is why they refuse.

I have tried but I I can't find a paper willing to take the risk. I think the RSPCA are such a powerful charity that few will take them on.
It's so wrong on so many levels.

It worries me too. Perhaps a paper might like to highlight these problems?

It worries me that their CEO is moving to the NSPCC later this month. What will he do there?

@paperdolly. Me too.
I have written to so many organisations asking them to investigate but no success yet. Any ideas ?
It is a travesty that so many people are still donating their hard earned cash to them in good faith.

I wish a program such as Panorama would take note of these replies and do an investigation on them. I really don’t know where the donations are going. Certainly not to rescuing animals like these. It’s certainly not the service it was set up for.

Totally agree. Absolutely abhorrent as I've posted on this thread already. Hope the dog was OK. Thank God he had you!

Horrendous charity. When I was at Uni 12 years ago, a house opposite mine had a dog that lived with a drug addict. I saw this dog at the living room window for a couple of days, scratching, howling. I knew something wasn’t right. Tried looking through the window, knocking on the door, looking through the letterbox and could only see this poor dog. Called the RSPCA for 2 days straight they wouldn’t do anything. I ended up calling the police and they wouldn’t do anything either. So the next day (day 3) I called the police again and told them I was concerned for the welfare of the human. They rammed his door down that night and found the dog abandoned, shit all over the house, no food, thin as anything. He’d been left for nearly two weeks by himself, basically howling for help because it was his last chance of survival.

From that day I have NEVER supported the RSPCA, and never will. They should be shut down.

Update to thread - Chris Packham has also now resigned from the RSPCA.
Please, a reminder that if you want to really help animals, donate to the small animal shelters who work tirelessly to help animals with very little income.
There are few positive experiences of the RSPCA, yet so much income .

The bitch next door reported us to. Them and they came out to check. She knew that our cat had problems with his hind legs and had patchy fur due to an accident when he was a kitten. Luckily I'd taken him to the vets the previous day and had a brand new prescription. Other neighbours said they stopped listening to her after other false claims.

Charity workers badged as "officers" 🙄 bad enough. But squandering millions on legal expenses perusing the estates left to them in dubious circumstances 🤬🤬🤬🤬

They won't get a penny from me.

Really bad. Lied to me about the dog I rescued from them,
then kept ringing me to ask for a direct debit donation, I said I had rescued a dog from them, they said is that it then you aren’t helping any more dogs?? So rude.

I give my money to local animal charities who actually assist animals in trouble and don’t just spend all the money on salaries and advertising….

whenever there is wildlife in trouble and members of the public are trying to phone the rspca I always tell them not to bother and I ring local volunteer rescuers instead (who are amazing). The rspca have never come out when I have rang them, nor in any of the instances I have seen people try to contact them. They also don’t help certain animals which I don’t understand. They wouldn’t come out to attend a seagull
because they said they don’t do seagulls (bizarre) and it died.

I think the rspca rescue centres are franchises (our local one is) and not funded through the central organisation. Our local one regularly have to post on Facebook begging for cat food as they have run out and can’t afford to feed all the cats they have, the volunteers buy it themselves… while the central rspca organisation have millions…

if you sign up to donate it doesn’t seem to actually go to the rescue centres or the animals which I’m sure those donating would be really sad about.

Don’t Even get me started on their work with farm animals. Shocking and completely opposed to what a animal charity should stand for.

The thing is that they are a charity, not a government agency, they are not the police.
while many have had poor experiences I have been fortunate to know hard working inspectors at the sharp end.

One officer will have often have a very large area to cover.

Was there something you could have done to help this poor horse? Intervened in some way?

I hear of so many people complaining about animals in trouble but it doesn’t occur to them to actually do something themselves.
Not saying this was relevant in your situation but sometimes we have to step out of our comfort zone and get involved.

I'm sad to say my experience has been in line with BM's and other pps here.

I think the RSPCA probably spend too much on being political Eg victimis of fox hunting are a vanishingly small proportion of animals subjected to cruelty - they need to prioritise other things. They were so obsessed with hunting while awful things happen to millions of other animals daily.

Brian May left because the RSPCA "assured" label on meat tells you absolutely nothing about welfare standards on those farms, which are shockingly low:

https://www.welfarewashing.org/

Here's what I donate to instead:

https://animalcharityevaluators.org/donate/donor-resources/recommended-charity-fund/

We all know what happened with the Post Office bringing their own prosecutions!!!!

As far as I can make out he was a trustee within the local branches, where volunteers or managers have some sort of collective trustee status.

The whole system must have been wildly incompetent or corrupt.

I have worked in the charity sector and in my organisation you wouldn’t have got away with an excess KitKat on expenses. Expense claims weren’t paid until they were authorised by a third party, scrutinised against budget, and then paid and recorded, again against budget, by the finance manager.

What was going on that a London based person runnnng London based branches, was staying in S London Premier Inns and taking taxis at that level? He was dishonest and fraudulent but he was enabled.

David Mawson was a trustee

If the Trustees of the RSPCA read this thread, they should hang their heads in shame and then take a very close, clinical look at how their organisation is run and then make major changes.

My local self funded RSPCA branch:
www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/rspca-fraud-david-mawson-b1183633.html

A colleague of mine is a kite surfing instructor on weekends and he said the RNLI are one charity he would not support as they are one of the richest. I understand their operations cost a lot of money, with the equipment needed etc but the figures they receive each year are massive!