To think what the RSPCA have done is completely out of order.

[HelenaDove]

.............not to mention bloody heartbreaking. This was totally unnecessary.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3567601/How-low-RSPCA-Animal-charity-seizes-nurse-s-cats-s-hospital-looks-pet-sheep-slaughtered-feed-hunting-dogs.html

Hmm. It sounds like there is more to it with the cats IMO - from the RSPCA's comment, it sounds as though the sister insisted that they were rehomed permanently. If the owner was in hospital and unable to make a decision, it would pass to her next of kin, surely?

The sheep though - I just don't get it. Why would they slaughter them one day after the owner was taken? Sheep will presumably do fine in a field for quite a while, there was no rush.

Although, saying that, we don't know what state the sheep were in.

Like a pp said, they could have been riddled with maggots or had other injuries or obvious illnesses. They could have been aggressive (yes, aggressive sheep do exist!) or had something infectious meaning they couldn't have been placed with other livestock to be cared for. Who knows.

Trying to read between the lines (because the DM print lies) I suspect this is the sister's fault. She was the one who should have been talking to neighbours / taking responsibility for the cats.

The RSPCA didn't just show up and barge in. Someone called them and asked them to sort out these cats.

That doesn't take away from the horrific stories on this thread though.

It's awful.

I'm sure if the RSPCA had actually given a shit then they would've at least waited until Ms. Brown was well enough to speak for herself- rather than having the sheep shot, one cat put down and the rest permanently re-homed within hours just on the say-so of the sister.

RSPCA are vindictive over small animals and useless over large ones.

I too have known a horse that was locked in its stable for 3 years and we kept complaining about it, but because it had some food and some water (which we sometimes had to top up) it was deemed ok! They actually said that we had to let it starve and stop ever topping up its hay before they would consider it a case!

This week I had an old ill ewe that couldn't get up. We treated her but she was in such a state that I got the vet round to put her down. This lady's sheep were healthy animals which the neighbour offered to look after. Why couldn't the sister say to the neighbour OK you can look after them. Absolutely bloody shameful.
As for the cats I don't know they managed to rehome them so quickly.

Sisters fault, but it's scary that she could give authorisation for something like this.

If you see a horse that needs help try world horse welfare or redwings before rspca. They actually care about animals

What arses. And yet at my old yard there were horses and dogs being so awfully neglected and the RSPCA wouldn't do anything about it!!
They're a load of shite if I'm honest with you. I refuse to give them any charity at all.

I run an animal welfare charity in Australia.
Here if an animal is seized or surrendered they are under no obligation to try rehome. For Cats and dogs picked up as strays they have a seven day holding period if un microchipped 14 for animals with a chip after which they may do as they wish.
Any cat with Ringworm is killed (dogs at our shelter do fair better) any kitten under 500g is also put to sleep. However they do work with rescue and contact us to see if we can take first. We try too but our donations are not even 1% of what they receive.

I don't trust the Daily Mail so I hope the RSPCA will give a statement and explain. Someone has mentioned the article on their FB page, but I've noticed they don't tend to respond anything like that so doubt we'll know what really happened. The sheep were Lincoln Longwools, which are one of Britain's rarer breeds, categorized as "at risk" by the Rare Breeds Survival Trust, so I really hope they were killed for humane reasons only.

I'm torn here. Knowing the DM there is every chance this story no longer even closely resembles the truth.
However I work for a lare Vets practice, and was quite surprised when I started the job to find that not a single staff member had anything positive to say about the RSPCA. Not any more...

Not clicking the link so haven't read the story. However I assume it's something along the lines of the RSPCA storming in and removing animals that were already being cared for, on trumped up grounds of 'neglect'. The animals have probably been euthanised instead of being rehomed.

I'm guessing this because the RSPCA is absolutely renowned for this. It it not accountable or transparent - so a charity that was started with the best of intentions is now a money making enterprise that has turned into a bit of a monster. There are numerous stories out there of them doing this - and there are growing concerns over their lack of accountability.

It is a charity that I will never donate to, which is a shame because at branch level there are lovely, dedicated and hardworking people who are desperately trying to make a difference. But they are hamstrung by a greedy and blinkered head office, who are more interested in making headlines through prosecutions, than actually re-homing and helping the animals they are supposed to be caring for. The local branches don't get any money from central funds - they are expected to be entirely self-supporting. This isn't clear in the adverts that the charity runs. I wonder how many people put £1 in a tin, or sign up to £5 monthly DD thinking that they are funding local RSPCA services in their area.

The charity also has form for bullying people that it has deemed to be 'counter' to its activities or objectives. There was some publicity a while back about a particular lawyer who was defending people against the RSPCA, who was targeted by them as a result.

The owner of my local rescue cannot stand the RSPCA. She gets (understandably) worked up about the fact that she could achieve so much more with a fraction of the funding they have. It's a bitter pill to swallow when many of the dogs that end up in her care, do so because the RSPCA don't want to get involved. I honestly didn't believe it until I saw it myself - there have been some terrible cruelty cases where dogs have been kept in the most appalling conditions. Quite often they are dumped - and if you ring the RSPCA they tell you to contact the local dog wardens. If it doesn't have an owner then they aren't interested, as there is nobody to prosecute.

If you are concerned about animal welfare or rehoming animals, then support your local rescue centre or the Dogs Trust. At least then your money will be going towards genuinely helping care for animals.

How appalling. I wonder if there's anything we can do to help her gets her cats back? I dread to think how I'd react if that were me.

It is partly the fear of something like this happening that I now have an emergency contact card in my wallet, with numbers of friends who would step in and look after my animals for me should the need arise.

The RSPCA are an absolute joke.

If anyone has concern about horses then it's better to contact World Horse Welfare or the British Horse Society welfare officer in your area. The rspca are quite happy to let horses suffer horrendously.

Betty, are you suggesting the animal sanctuary who fostered the animals with her did there checks and ignored other animals suffering from a lack of care?

It's almost certain the police called the rspca because that's what they do when a lone adult with lots of animals is taken to hospital unconscious and looking like they may be some time.

This is why if anything ever happened to me or DH, I have a card in my wallet with the details of the rescue where my dogs came from. I know that they would look after them - and genuinely look after them - if the worst happened. The rescue has a no-kill policy and is consequently bursting at the seams because they try to take in dogs that are near the end of their 14 day stay with the LAs. I currently have one chap snoring next to me who was on day 13 and about to be PTS. Fortunately the rescue found out about him and went and picked him up and he came to us the next day.

the rspca IMO are a shit charity, pre 2002/2003 I used to work with them a lot and donate a lot of money to, the work I did with them was funded work so was earnt income for the rspca.

After watching some quite shocking 'welfare' decisions being made by them and a few high profile court cases involving wills I will now no longer work with them or fund them.

I come into contact with a lot of vets and other animal welfare orgs and nowadays not one has anything good to say about them.

I stopped supporting the RSPCA after the shot a group of German shepherds with bolt guns in front of each other.

Husband has clear instructions to never let an RSPCA inspector inside the house under any guise. They can wait until they have an official warrant. They seem to prefer to pinch the easy family pets and ignore the difficult, actual neglect cases. I work with an animal charity and there is a lot of hatred and suspicion towards the RSPCA.

I have zero respect for the RSPCA.
As someone else mentioned, they are utterly useless when it comes to abandoned/neglected horses and will not remove them - presumably because it's much more expensive to rescue and then euthanise a horse than a smaller animal.

Most people who work in/support animal welfare or rescue centres, think the RSPCA aren't fit for purpose. It's because we see the reality of the RSPCA's 'support' - i.e. there isn't any.

It's the daily mail. The daily mail makes a habit of twisting stories so they're just this edge of libellous but wholly distorted.

Sounds like the family thought she wasn't going to survive and just got rid of everything so possibly the family to blame rather than rspca

It is about time Parliament took action to regulate the RSPCA.

Might be the DM, but it sounds suspiciously like the sort of thing the RSPCA would do. Like so many of you, I have zero tolerance for them, awful, awful organisation.

As for those of you saying it's the DM. The sheep already had someone looking after them. They even tried to give the RSPCA their food. The cats had come from a rescue - this lady had been home checked.

What it boils down to is a day after she was rushed to hospital, the RSPCA took it upon themselves to seize her animals, murder her sheep (despite there being more than adequate care in place), and steal her cats (despite most of them legally still belonging to a rescue) - their chips would have shown this, and one phone call to the rescue would have meant a completely different outcome.