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

[Meadowlands]

He has resigned because the RSPCA's response to poor animal welfare was completely inadequate.
When I reported an animal in distress, they refused to investigate, and it was left to my local animal shelter -which is struggling for money - to come to the rescue.
I find it all extremely concerning. Does anyone else have any experiences?

RSPCA smell worse than the farm manure heap.

Begging’s legal - misleading begging on false pretences should be.

Charity Commission fail. Again.

This post is a bit of a read, and refers to RSPCA's evil twin the SSPCA.

In spring of 2011 I found a very skinny cat with matted fur, she was so tiny and severly underweight and had numerous huge matted patches all over her fur, she was a sorry sight. No chip, no tag on her collar and despite trawling through the web searching for posts that were about a missing cat, couldn't locate the owner.

I kept her safe and fed her, cleared out the shed for a temporary home and I called SSPCA. There was no way I could take her into my house as she had fleas, I already had a cat so I couldn't risk a flea infestation in my house, so it was the shed or nothing. Anyway, a woman from SSPCA came the following afternoon, took a look at her and said "She's wearing a collar so she must belong to someone. Let her go to find her way home" that was it. She left with an air of arrogance which made me feel like I had done the wrong thing to even call them. And the collar that she had on looked like it was about to disintegrate.

I am not exagerating, but if you ran your hand to stroke her you could feel every bone, I counted 18 matted patches. I nicknamed her Orphan Annie. Friendliest and affectionate personality. She was awesome.

I contacted a cat rescue who said to bring her to us, but they couldn't take her for a few days. I felt so guilty that i couldnt take her inside, she had shelter, food, water in my shed which was better than the alternative of roaming with a hungry belly. I couldn't let her go with no intervention to get her help, but the rescue reassured me that the shed would be fine temporary accommodation.

When in the care of the cat rescue they had her assessed by their vet, she had lots of missing teeth, gum disease, malnourished and was an elderly cat aged around 14 years old. The x-rays showed she had broken bones in 2 of her front legs which hadn't healed properly so her paws were pointing at a slight angle. They dealt with the fleas, the matted fur and a food plan to help her gain weight. She had a scar which showed she was previously speyed.

Despite all the attempts to find an owner, still no-one came forward. So I went back to cat rescue and brought wee Annie home. She got on brilliantly with my cat and they bonded practically straight away.

In the Autumn, nesrly 6 months after finding her, I received a visit from the SSPCA who stood on my doorstep and accused me of mistreating and starving my cat. The obnoxious fool of an officer threated that she was now investigating me and she would remove all pets from my care if she seen any sign of neglect. Annie was gaining weight but being an elderly cat with a rocky past she did look frail but she was loved and adored, she was definitely heavier, groomed and an absolute joy to own.

I was called a liar as she did not believe that I had ever contacted them about her. Apparently there was no record of me calling or their visit/refusal to help me. I gave them the details of the cat rescue and told her to go do thorough research before ever coming back to my door again.

Cat rescue verified everything and I received a note through my letterbox from SSPCA saying that no further action would be taken. She didn't even have the decency to speak to me in person. Just snuck up like a fucking ninja to shove a pissy wee note with no apology like a coward.

Annie lived with us for 3 years and 5 months until she passed away peacefully in my arms. I don't know what happened to her before coming into my life but I made sure that she had more love and attention to make up for her crappy stray life.

I will never ever donate a penny to them, in my opinion they are absolute despicable cretins.

Sounds just like the SPCA in my country. I prefer to donate to other organisations, who actually care about animals and do something to help them.

Would the police not deal with that as i've seen them on TV going after hare coursers?

I don't understand why it's still left to a charity to deal with animal welfare crimes and prosecutions.

From what an ex-inspector told me, those working now cover a much larger area rather than just local so are very limited to how many cases they can deal with and imagine calls have to be prioritised.
I'm not sure the rehoming centres are fully funded from HQ.

Can't say I'm surprised. I've heard first hand from a few friends and relatives about the RSPCAs refusal to help them. I support several animal charities,but this is one that I have consistently refused to donate to.

I heard so many bad things about them recently. I wonder when this is going to blow up into a huge scandal?

Well done to Brian May for getting out of it. My opinion of him is even higher. (Did anyone see the recent documentary about Brian and the badgers? It's well worth watching.)

Are you now mother of a ferret?

It’s well known in the charity sector that they’ve always been ineffective and salaries are wildly inflated

Another one with the SSPCA, but I'm guessing that PP's description of them as their 'evil twin' is not far off the mark.

I recall the case of Fiona the sheep, who got trapped at the bottom of a cliff for some time with nowhere to go, and who thus got a lot of publicity for being 'Britain's loneliest sheep'.

Some enterprising, compassionate local farmers took it upon themselves to plan and carry out her rather complicated rescue, and they succeeded in getting her to safety, the SSPCA obviously not having been bothered at all.

However, once she had been rescued and her feelgood story was all across the national news, then the SSPCA swung into action and got themselves in the limelight, trying to make people assume that they had been in some way involved and exploiting the case in urging people to donate to them.

Good for Brian - a man of genuine principal.

@GraceAnatomy god bless you, giving Annie a loving family in her final years after the profound neglect she suffered.

The sheer arrogance and pathetic cowardice of that SSPCA woman. She did not have a leg to stand on.

What I want to know is on what basis do the SSPCA or the RSPCA have the power to prosecute for animal abuse? Should that power not belong to the police?

Petty tyrants and idiots should not ever be given such power. Who are the SSPCA and RSPCA accountable to?

I once called them for advice - we had three dogs at the time, and two of them had massive vet bills (from accidents) that wiped us out. Then the third had an abscess, and we had nothing left. In in desperation, I called them to ask for advice on whether they knew about any animal welfare funds to help those in need. They took my details and our vet's details because they "want to be able to get in touch", then a) said there was nothing available because they're not that kind of charity ("We're primarily about marketing awareness and enforcement"), and b) threatened to take us to court for criminal animal cruelty if the dog hadn't been seen at that specific vet within three days.

Funnily enough, I haven't donated to the RSPCA since, and never will. Very, very little of their funds go to actually helping animals in need, which is kind of the opposite of what their marketing material suggests; if it were any other organisation, they'd be destroyed in the courts for deceptive marketing.

In the end, a complete stranger gave us the money on a "pay it forward" basis, which we've been doing ever since our fortunes improved.

RSPCA are a fucking disgrace

https://www.timeslocalnews.co.uk/local-news/woman-who-lost-arm-in-attack-sues-rspca/

Seems to be taken donations influenced by their plinky plonky sad music/solemn voiced daytime TV adverts.

This is just heartbreaking. That poor creature. I've never heard a good word about them; always on the adverts asking people to leave money in their will to them.

I read the same scenario yesterday on Facebook with a fox. They were not interested and by the time the rescue got there the poor fox had to be put to sleep. I see posts all the time saying “don’t bother with the rspca, they won’t do anything”

I used to work for them. Turns out we were a franchise. Committee only turned up on open days or appeared when serious newsworthy cases came in and took the limelight from us workers who were there cleaning up every day of the year. It’s true that many people only know the cleaned up TV version. I have NEVER given money to them since the day I left.

On the couple of times I have had need to contact the RSPCA they have been completely uninterested and no help and sadly for that reason I don't donate to them.

This is nothing new. There have been rumblings about them for years.

They put hugely emotional tv ads on during the day pleading for money yet they do bugger all.

A cat wandered into the tube station I was working at looking untidy but otherwise well. I rang the RSPCA who couldn't be less interested. I fed him and cleaned him up as best I could then rang the local vets. They said, bring him in, and we'll scan him to see if he's got an owner. I don't know the outcome but I just want to make the point that sometimes ringing anyone else first might be the better course of action.

I phoned them about a dog that was nearly always chained up outside. They said they wouldn't come out until it was 24 hours from death.

Can they and their actions be evaluated, with a possibility of the 'Royal' word being stripped from them, if those granting that privilege feel that they are not fulfilling their basic brief?

Countless times, they have been exposed as not really being bothered about actually preventing cruelty to animals - so maybe they should just change their name to 'Society', which appears to be the only accurate/deserved word in their name.

If I started up a new charity and named it after something that tugs on people's heartstrings, but then blatantly didn't do what the stated aim of the charity was or misdirected a boatload of the donations away from the purposes for which the givers had clearly been misled into giving them for, I would rightly be in prison. I guess this is the privilege of becoming too big and too established to be accountable.

@TheHangingGardensOfBasildon precisely. The words Prevention of Cruelty to Animals no longer applies to them. I hope the RF soon distance themselves too (despite their fondness for blood sports).

Perhaps we should all individually write to King Charles and tell him to take the Royal stamp of approval off of this greedy lot. Or is it the gov we need to write to. If we all did this surely they would have to do something.
Perhaps The Sun would get up a petition they are good at that sort of thing. In any case something must be done, but where to start?

I called the RSPCA when we moved to our new house and after a couple of weeks found a dying badger at the end of our garden. He came out, did nothing for the badger, but gave us a threatening lecture about not approaching a badger sett and how it was illegal for us to go near it, despite being in our garden.