Episode 2 Animal Frontline

-Good afternoon. RSPCA control centre.

-Is the cat still breathing?

-No.

You don't think it's breathing.

Every 30 seconds, someone calls the RSPCA about an animal that needs help.

I'll pass this information through to the officer.

From neglected pets to injured wildlife.

For the trained inspectors, every shift is a challenge.

-Back in the field!

-That's disgusting.

We cannot leave this situation as it is.

Now, they tell us what it's really like on the animal frontline.

-No day, really, is the same.

-We have piggies!

It never ceases to amaze me!

I go to bed thinking about it and I wake up thinking about it.

What makes a good RSPCA inspector? Nerves of steel. A stomach of iron.

And a sense of humour.

Today, the case Inspector Jayne Bashford will never forget.

What we found in that address was utterly horrific.

The cat undergoing life-changing surgery.

This is where I hold my breath. Concentrating.

And a call about a bird of prey that has crash-landed.

Gorgeous, aren't you? You're gorgeous.

OK.

In east London, Inspector Clare Dew is called out to

a very familiar problem.

Skinny dogs is something that we receive a lot of complaints about.

Blatant, "I'm not feeding my dog, I don't want to feed it,

"can't afford to feed it, I'm hoping...I'll starve it to death."

The emaciated dogs are a cause for real concern,

so Clare meets a colleague to assist at the property.

-How skinny is skinny?

-Pretty skinny.

My colleague Steve showed me over the fence.

Oh, oh.

Hello!

Oh, they're both really skinny, Steve.

'And I, in my career, haven't seen two dogs quite as thin as that'

in a long time, that are still standing, quite frankly.

'They were paper-thin emaciated.

'That's at a dangerous point for that animal.'

My first reaction is anger. Just anger. It's always anger.

I'll look around the front, you keep an eye on the back window.

Clare is determined to confront the owner.

KNOCKING AT DOOR

I'm not a person that doesn't get no reply when I knock on the door.

'I just opened the door.'

Hello! RSPCA! Anyone home?!

And there's this woman standing in this house.

Hello!

And three perfectly healthy dogs indoors.

We've had a complaint about your two skinny dogs.

'She said that she hadn't wanted them'

and had given them away to somebody who lived four, five miles away,

and, amazingly, these two dogs had managed to find themselves

all the way from that address back to her garden(!)

Even if the owners has tried to give the dogs away,

Clare still wants to know why they're so thin.

She was nonchalant about the fact that she'd got two emaciated dogs,

"Yeah, there's two dogs in the garden, just we don't want them.

What do you want to do with the dogs now? You can't keep them.

Very difficult to keep my temper at that point. SHE LAUGHS

The owner makes it clear that she no longer wants

the two dogs in the garden.

The priority is the dogs, it's getting them some help.

'She quite clearly doesn't want them.'

She's happy to give them to the RSPCA, doesn't want the responsibility.

Come on, darling.

'Can't be bothered. Doesn't want to, can't afford to feed them.'

Hello. I know, you're lovely.

I know, we're going to get you somewhere nice and warm.

Once the dogs have been removed,

their dreadful condition becomes fully apparent.

They're such nice dogs. They're always nice dogs. Abused dogs are always the loveliest.

There was no way I was leaving those two dogs there.

One way or the other, they were coming away with me.

Nice kennel, yeah, nice dog bowl.

Nice bed.

With the dogs safely out of the house,

Clare gathers photographic evidence for any possible prosecution.

The vet will tell us how long he thinks it's been for them

to get quite that skinny.

Then we make a decision about whether we prosecute or not.

I would have failed dismally in my job and would not be

worthy of wearing this uniform if I'd left those two dogs in that garden.

Would you like something to eat? Shall I see what I've got for you?

That look like a dog that's had much to eat to you?!

The dogs have clearly not been fed for some time.

'I immediately gave them something to eat.'

Inhaling this dog biscuit, it's just sad to see an animal eat like that.

Is that nice?

What do you do?

You've kind of got to try and believe people or...

I don't know, yeah, incredibly frustrated, really.

Especially when she's got three healthy dogs inside.

Hey, you all right?

My priority is get them out of that situation and into a vet

and just let's get them warm, comfortable.

At the vet's,

the two dogs are checked over to assess their condition.

Hey, it's all right, darling. You're safe now.

The vet will make his report, pending prosecution.

Good girl.

That's enough. You'll be sick.

I would suspect the most likely outcome

is that it's going to be chronic malnutrition.

How long do you think it would take them to get in this thin condition

if she wasn't feeding them regularly?

-I would say it's going to be at least two to three months.

-OK.

Of underfeeding.

The ultimate satisfaction is to do the best thing for the animal

and just getting them out of that garden.

'Whatever happens to them now, from now, it's got to be better'

than them curling up and dying of starvation in that garden.

A few months on, Clare's hopes for the dogs' future are being realised.

Come on, babes. There's a good girl.

Hello, babes. There's a good girl. OK.

Kennel owner Doug is delighted with their recovery.

They've been here just over two months

and they've exceeded my expectations, really,

as regards weight and condition, so we're really pleased with them.

OK. Right. Nice, sit, sit.

And they certainly love their food.

I think because they were starved

and not fed the way they should have been, that they...

just any food that is down, they just want to wolf it up.

Back to full health,

the dogs can now look forward to finding a new, loving home.

Yes! Yes! Yes!

Good morning, RSPCA control centre, you're speaking to Louise,

can I take your name, please?

The RSPCA doesn't just take calls about cats and dogs.

They deal with incidents relating to every animal and bird imaginable.

And that's when inspectors have to be prepared for anything to happen.

Inspector Jason Bowles is trained to deal with all animals,

but this call makes him feel a little uneasy.

'Hmmm. They do make me a little bit nervous,'

because it's not your everyday animal that I pick up.

A bird, an injured bird of prey. Erm...

You're immediately wondering, what have I got to deal with here?

'How large was it?'

It could have been massive, it could have been a tiny little bird.

817, I'll take that job.

It's one of the joys of the job,

you never know quite what you're going to find when you get there.

All the information I had was that it was a large bird of prey,

sitting in the back garden.

Protective gloves.

Jason's going to need all the protection he can get.

The gloves are mainly for the talons.

They can peck at you, but mainly, if it's fairly...

even a small bird of prey, those talons get into your hand,

they can go straight through, so it's mainly for that.

When I first walked into the back garden,

I don't know what went wrong, but I couldn't actually see the bird.

I was looking around for the bird, I couldn't see it, although it was straight in front of me.

Do you know where it is?

-Well, it's been underneath there for a while.

-Right.

-And it will let you go near it.

-Right.

Until it was pointed out to me that it was sitting right in front of me on the trampoline.

Oh, there it is! HE LAUGHS

Was it there just now?

Then I was struck by the size of it,

so it's a pretty large bird of prey, to be fair.

'Those talons are strong and very, very sharp.'

They could easily go straight through your hand or your arm.

A nervous Jason is hoping the bird might have an owner

and so is used to being handled.

So, put the gauntlets on and see if it would come to my hand.

OK.

If it's used to being on someone's arm, it might well jump onto my arm.

Maybe not.

Come on, then.

BIRD SQUAWKS

Jump on.

Come on.

'Sat there in a non-aggressive position away from it'

and held out my arm.

Gorgeous, aren't you? 'See whether it would come to me.'

You're gorgeous. OK.

And, like magic, the bird did.

Good lad.

Which was...I was well chuffed.

'Now I've got a bird on my arm,

'but then I've got the problem of trying to contain it.'

OK. So, this is the tricky bit.

Is there another glove on the floor there? Did I leave it?

It's hard to deal with these big gloves,

because you can't actually feel anything through them.

But every time I went there this bird's feet it basically flew off.

Come on then.

But if at first you don't succeed...

Come on then.

Good lad.

Good lad.

And then it hopped straight back on and...walked slowly back to the van.

Thankfully, the bird doesn't appear to be injured,

but it's a nervy walk back to the van.

And the only way to relax the bird is to confine it in a box

ready for transportation.

And at that stage it decided that it didn't really want to be handled.

BIRD SQUAWKS LOUDLY You're OK.

And dug its talons into the glove.

He's got hold of my glove.

He can have my glove, as long as he doesn't get my hand.

Those talons were straight through it,

so I just got a little bit of a scratch. Not much.

And I willingly gave the glove to the bird,

and took my hand back and job done.

Jason takes the bird to a local sanctuary run by Sue Lewis.

-There's a good bird.

-While he investigates where it's come from.

Are you hungry? Yes, starving.

The bird is identified as a saker falcon

and its leg band suggests it definitely has an owner.

-It's really tame.

-Yeah.

-I mean, it loves to be on the glove.

I wonder if they've been flying it.

Usually in that situation, an animal, even if it's

a domestic animal or a pet, wouldn't eat in that situation, because

it's pretty stressful, just being stuck in a box and transported away.

'And into a new place. But this bird was absolutely starving.'

Sorry.

-Yes, I know.

-Is that telling you off.

-Yes, leave me alone, I'm eating!

So why do you think he's just gone and landed in the garden? Because he can fly still.

Yes, but he's weak, if he's not eaten for a while,

then he's weak, and he hasn't got the power.

And he's obviously really tame.

He'll have been mobbed by the crows and the seagulls and it's tiring.

That's probably one of the reasons why it had landed in this back garden and hadn't flown off.

It had reached a point where it hadn't been able to sustain itself.

He's obviously, you know, really tame.

If he's not eaten for a while,

and he's weak, he hasn't got the power.

Hopefully, we'll find his home. If we don't, he can stay.

It's an unusual bird,

so Jason is confident the owners will come forward soon.

In towns and cities across Britain, dogs are being bred for profit.

The animals are often sold as pedigrees, but are kept

in awful conditions and are often suffering from serious illnesses.

They're a commodity that they can sell for a lot of money.

For Inspector Jayne Bashford, one case stays with her to this day.

I can hear it now. I can still hear it. Whenever I think about it,

I'm there.

I can see it and I can hear those puppies.

It started with a tip-off that a house on an estate

in Staffordshire was being used as a so-called puppy farm.

Interestingly, on 22 July, it says "little missy due".

I believe that that's evidence of puppies being bred.

Jayne raided the property and, armed with a camcorder,

recorded some of the most shocking

and distressing scenes of cruelty she had ever come across.

My concerns were raised straight away by this little puppy which was

sitting on the sofa in the same position and it hasn't moved.

'I attended the property with the police'

and we went in under the warrant.

'There were puppies in the living room, the living room was filthy.

'There was compacted faeces on the floor.'

The smell... The smell in there was... it was overpowering.

'There were some elderly female dogs that it was obvious

'looking at them that they had been bred several times,

'but you could tell these bitches had been bred from a lot.'

OK, so, starting to go out into the rear garden of the premises now.

'And when we went outside there were rabbit hutches.'

There's no other way to describe them, they were rabbit hutches.

'And inside each rabbit hutch there were dogs.'

One contained an adult Staffordshire bull terrier and her puppies,

crammed into a rabbit hutch. Erm...

'They're trampling over each other, trampling in their own faeces

'and they're throwing themselves at the mesh,

'barking, wanting to get some attention.'

-Yes?

-Yes, just let them out.

-The dogs were immediately freed.

Just going to look at the inside of this kennel area.

And the full extent of their squalid living conditions revealed.

'These hutches are filthy. There's very little bedding.'

There's no bedding, there's sawdust.

Oh, dear.

This is a nasty, nasty environment.

For Jayne and her team,

the priority was to check out all the dogs to determine

just how much they had suffered living in these dreadful conditions.

-You look at their nails.

-Oh, God. Oh, my goodness.

The vet was of the opinion that all of these dogs were suffering

with diarrhoea and symptoms of illness.

Everything needed to come out.

But the case suddenly became even more serious.

I'm just being called down the garden.

So police officers went up there. Erm...

'And they shouted.'

I'm just being called away by the police officer.

And you just hear, "Jayne, Jayne, come quick."

The police had made a horrific discovery.

-There's a dead dog down here.

-It's breathing.

-Steve! Steve!

They've been buried alive!

And the police officers exhumed two puppies

that had been buried alive in the sand. In the soil.

That is singularly the most...erm...

unbelievably dreadful thing I've ever seen.

'You'd got police officers at the scene,'

you'd got the veterinary surgeon and other experienced

RSPCA inspectors and the whole... everybody just went silent.

It was that moment of what, what? What on earth is going on?!

It's just unthinkable. Absolutely unthinkable.

Sadly, both the buried puppies were too ill to survive.

I don't think I could ever possibly say what I think about those people.

What can you say?

'They're living creatures.

'They're little tiny, beautiful puppies.

'They're just at the start of what should be their lives

'and they've been born into this horrifically filthy,

'dirty environment, with people who don't care less.'

In the end, Jayne took 24 dogs away from the house.

The three people responsible were arrested

and later jailed for animal cruelty.

They all received the maximum sentence that could be imposed down to them,

which is six months in custody.

'They were all disqualified from keeping any animal for life.

'So if they ever have another animal

'I just pray that someone will pick up a phone and let us know,

'because unless people pick up the phone,'

we would never have known, and this could still be going on.

The successful prosecution closed the case.

They're happy to be out, aren't they?

But doesn't erase the memory.

What we found in that address was just...

it was utterly horrific.

And I think it's something that will live with me

and everybody else that was at that warrant,

it will live with us for the rest of our lives, I think.

Since being removed from the house,

most of the dogs have flourished and been found new, loving homes.

She's lovely. She's the nicest little dog.

She's never had so much fuss, have you?

And pet lover Avril is delighted

to be able to give one rescued dog, Vicky, a fresh start in life.

She's settled in extremely well.

She seems to be a very happy and contented little dog.

I think it's appalling that people do treat animals in this way,

absolutely appalling.

So we got you out of that, didn't we?

There you go.

RSPCA Inspector Jayne Bashford hopes that this case will provide

vital lessons to those buying pets.

You are a good sausage.

I just ask people to just think, are you looking on websites?

Are you just responding to an anonymous card in a pet shop?

Think to yourself, where are these puppies coming from?

As they coming from a dirty backstreet breeder

like this particular instance?

Because all you're actually doing is, if you go ahead and buy that puppy

that then becomes ill, you're lining the pockets

of these people, who don't care two jots about the welfare of those dogs.

Vicky! Come on!

The RSPCA doesn't just respond to calls about mistreated

and injured animals.

In Manchester,

its animal hospital deals with over 27,000 appointments every year.

The hospital is a charity that helps those with sick animals

who are struggling to pay expensive vet bills.

'The RSPCA hospital'

exists primarily to treat people

who are unable to afford private veterinary fees.

It's shaping up to be another extremely busy day

for hospital director David Yates.

Starting with a cat called Bacardi.

The next patient in is Bacardi, which is

a seven-year-old neutered female cat, belonging to Mr Jones.

Bacardi has sustained a serious-looking eye injury.

Concerned owners Michael and Antoinette

have no idea how she received it.

We went to the vet a couple of weeks ago.

She had a bit of a bad eye,

we didn't really know what were wrong with her, so we just

come down here today to see if she can get any more treatment.

With their three daughters anxiously awaiting news at home,

Michael and Antoinette are hoping David and his colleagues can help Bacardi.

Jones?

The owners had taken care of the cat, they'd had her neutered, they'd vaccinated and cared for her.

But she'd sustained an injury to the eye which proved too costly for them

to manage in private practice, so she was referred to a charity hospital.

Come on in. Hiya.

When we first examined Bacardi, the damage to the eye was extensive.

-Now, that eye has lost a lot of fluid.

-Yeah.

The layer that's over the top of the eye is damaged, you know,

so water that's normally inside the eyeball has come out.

And it's all infected and inflamed.

Sadly, David decides the eye can't be saved.

With the damage that Bacardi had sustained,

that soon became obvious that we couldn't save the eye.

That eye's going to have to come out, because it's infected and sore.

Then we're left with a choice.

We have to either take out the eye or consider putting Bacardi to sleep.

The choices are drastic but losing an eye

is a life-threatening situation for an outdoor cat.

The chances of a fatal injury or accident are high.

Cats rely on both eyes to get depths to their vision.

'She wouldn't easily be able to escape from other cats or be able'

to negotiate very well in a totally outdoor environment,

so if the owner was adamant that they wanted Bacardi to stay

and live an outdoor life, we would be a little concerned about that.

David needs to know that Bacardi's owners understand

the gravity of the situation before he agrees to operate.

-Do you think she'll be able to cope with one eye?

-I do.

-She's pretty resilient.

-Yeah.

Yes, we'll give her a bit of extra-special treatment, won't we?

-David decides surgery to remove the eye can go ahead.

-I'll see you soon.

And Bacardi is taken away to be prepared for her operation.

I even told the kids, I've had that cat longer than yous!

They showed obvious concern in the consulting room that they

wanted us to fix Bacardi and get her back to normal.

-Bye, now.

-Bye.

Owners Michael and Antoinette can do nothing but wait and hope.

It's a procedure that we do quite a lot, enucleation. It's surprising

how often pets, particularly dogs and cats, will damage their eyeballs.

Vet Rachel Watkinson is performing the surgery on Bacardi.

One of my colleagues did the surgery, and first we stitched the eyelids together

so that the eyeball is enclosed in a little bag, as it were,

and then we dissect around the eyelids

and around the bony orbit that keeps the eye inside the skull.

This is a delicate operation.

This is where I hold my breath.

Concentrating.

Any mistake could be costly.

So the eye is just about to come away there now. There we are.

It's come out all in one, which is good.

I just need to really check that we haven't got any bleeding

down in the orbit there.

And then we're finished.

Just going to be a bit uncomfortable for the next day or two,

a little bit of swelling and bruising, but hopefully

she'll feel a lot more comfortable in a couple of days.

Bacardi was home within a week.

And two months later, after a couple of wobbles,

she's now settled back into family life.

She's only run into one thing, hasn't she?

-Yeah, and she's fell off the window once.

-Yeah, once.

But that was when we first brought her back home.

And it's not exactly injured her, really. Not at all.

She means quite a lot to us, because she's like a sister,

-because we've had for so many years.

-She loves you, doesn't she?

-Yes.

-Cos you give loads of strokes, like that.

-She's not like a cat, she is part of the family.

-Yet, she really is.

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