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?

What sort of oversight is there for the fact they are allowed to take prosecutions?

Had a friend who once worked in finance at RSPCA. She was horrified when she saw some local school girls doing a charity fundraiser for them. "What are you giving the money to them for? They don't need it!"

I worked in private sector all my life and had lots of direct debits going to various big charities (not animal). Then I did some work in the charity sector and trust me, I will not give to any unless they are small campaign groups or local organisations.

Yep - one big charity hadn’t been filing its accounts so had penalties ratcheting up with knock on effect on other filings with more penalties. Low thousands but when you think of someone scraping together a couple of quid to donate and it goes on this kind of thing it is sickening

xref the Naomi Campbell charity where more money went on her attending events then on the actual causes

bit you do have to be careful with small charities too. I saw one that delivered a specific product to war zones. Checked their accounts and they purchased the products from a company they ran and the prices were inflated. Didn’t donate and a couple of years later they were struck off by charity commission

Not surprised to read any of these shit stories of how wank the RSPCA are, similar experience when I reported a neglected horse-didn't meet their non-existent threshold 🙄
They pay so much money to the exec's and put fuck all donations into welfare, wouldn't give them a fucking penny. Much better to donate to local animal welfare charities.

I don’t think I know a national charity that isn’t questionable.

from national lottery athlete funding through to macmillan, rspca etc. the money goes to the people running it, not the end users it’s intended for.

https://www.rspca.org.uk/whatwedo/latest/facts

well here is their defence. Claim they spend 82% on animal welfare,1% on governance and 17% on fundraising

of course what animal welfare means is another question and their ‘myths’ answers seem weak tbh

They put down healthy ones

I thought it was a given how useless/ineffective they are. Husband is a bobby and said they have been hopeless/not interested when they report animal neglect.

Sounds like RSPCA are just a giant GoFundMe ad.

Running costs would be far less. Redundancy costs might be a big part but you only close a charity when you are winding it down or get closed down.
Other costs go down in the winding up process.

This is very worrying ! The use of muzzles to prevent laminitis / over feeding is standard. Even if the RSPCA officer was unfamiliar with muzzles, a quick google when faced with the report would have been useful. Also would have saved all that ( costly) wasted time for all concerned.

It is an organisation I hold in utter contempt and I refuse point blank to donate to it.

Wow. Had a 'couldn't care less' experience with them years ago but didn't realise they were this awful.

Do they only recruit narcissistic bullies? The stories of the threats to prosecute are shocking.

I hope this isn’t NRAS because they have been extremely helpful to me

If they don't do anything, nothing would change if they ceased to exist?

I haven't read the whole thread so apologies if this has been mentioned before.

After a CEO at RSPCA whose name I have forgotten was appointed about 20 years ago it very quickly went downhill. A couple of vets I know have said RSPCA do not come out unless there is money or publicity to be had or a smaller animal charity to be pushed out of business.

Around the time of the change in CEO there were news reports about RSPCA having vets who were incentivised to report any slight matter which they then looked into to take to court. Private Eye and other papers ran with these stories for quite some time.

Also I worked in farming and the Red Tractor label has for years been known in agriculture to not be the sign of quality RSPCA and supermarkets hope to convey. The farms aren't inspected often or thoroughly enough, the officers not well trained in farm animal welfare and well it's not something they give away for free, based on invoiced sales, so farmwashing goes on in a lot of these certification and awards. It is about time it was all cleaned up properly and regulated better.

No it wasn’t

They're a lot like the post office as well in terms of abusing prosecution powers. They take private prosecutions out against people who are just a bit useless, rather than cruelly neglectful.

I'd never donate to them.

Dd once had a friend who has mild learning difficulties

The back story is,apparently he was with his mum and she was driving her car and they crashed

Mum died and he was in hospital for ages

When he got out,he started collecting animals to fill the void in his life

Once he got to about 20 different pets,his stepmum stepped in and between dd,stepmum and myself,we got the animals down to a more manageable amount (we got them all into happy homes)-with a lot of support for him to cope-he was and the animals left where happy and well looked after

Enter these twats-they hammered on his door,swept in,claimed the pets he had
(about 3) where being badly abused,took them and took him to court

Cue the local papers making a big thing about how he's an animal abuser,'forgetting' to mention his difficulties,that the care was good enough but not perfect and he had a lot of support in place

(all where fed,walked,cleaned up after and loved,they seemed to base it on a dirty feeding bowl and the fact that the cat was old and a tiny bit underweight-i do mean a tiny bit but was otherwise healthy,shed been to the vets the week before and no concerns raised)

It ruined his life-he ended up leaving the area after trying to kill himself a few times and we've now lost touch with him

He was low hanging fruit-his issues meant he couldn't fully understand what they where accusing him of and that made him an easy target

They 'saved' 3 animals from fuck all abuse,got the glory and donations from the public and put those animals put to sleep within a few days (that bit was hidden from the public)

I really hope they crash and burn,they really are fuckers

I had several ferrets. That was a good few years ago.

I also had a bad experience with them refusing to help a sick and abandoned cat. I ended up taking care of him and finding him a shelter.

Good for Brian May. I think since they're a Royal Society, the government should step in and dissolve the organisation.

These stories are absolutely appalling.

I called to report a guy beating his dog with a chain lead whilst screaming that it was a cunt and chasing the poor thing. It happened in public, in broad daylight, on a main road. I caught it on camera, found out the guys name, basically did everything for them.
They didn't want the video and later phoned to say they had visited him and were taking no further action because there were "circumstances that led to his behaviour".
This same guy, having been visited by the RSPCA, tried tracking me down and was outside on my street screaming my name and shouting abuse...
Poor fucking dog left with that psycho. All through the beating he kept trying to approach his owner only to have to dodge a chain being swung at him. The yelps every time he got hit were horrible😭

The RSPCA are a useless waste of money. One of my neighbours decided to get a Shetland pony for their children and keep it in their garden (average size garden for a terraced house in the uk) of course it took 48hrs for him to turn the small amount of grass into a mud pit so they put a chain around his neck and tied him up in their front garden, he was jumped on constantly by children, no shelter, and looked miserable. The RSPCA refused to even come and look because he had a bucket of water and hay.

After watching him stood outside during a particularly bad storm I went and offered them £100 for him and took him to live with my horse. 3 weeks later the RSPCA knocked on my door because they had finally come out to see him and been told he belonged to me. By that point he had been seen by the farrier because his poor hooves were so long they were turned up and had a full vet check up. He lived a very happy life with us for the next 12yrs but ill never forgive the RSPCA for not rescuing him.