Episode 4 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.

It's disgusting.

CAT MIAOWS

We can't 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, stomach of iron and a sense of humour.

Today...

A call to assist the fire brigade after a dog takes a nasty fall.

The horses rescued from potentially fatal floods.

And this little piggy gives Inspector Sally Wren the runaround.

I was slightly self-conscious,

I was also thinking the main thing was to try and get the pig.

There is one call that the RSPCA hears more than any other.

Is the cat injured in any way, or anything like that?

Right, how long's the cat been in the car for?

Last year nearly 6,000 cats were abandoned,

and that number is rising.

I'm forever hearing the saying,

cats can look after themselves,

they'll look after themselves, but they won't.

And it really annoys me, to be honest,

the lack of care people will associate with cats.

You just get a bit fed up with people's attitudes, you know,

towards their pets,

and it seems to be getting worse, if anything, to be honest.

In Birkenhead two cats have been reported abandoned,

it's a case Anthony Joynes has been working on for several days.

Most occasions the cats have got the run of the house

and they can get to the front door

so I'll either put ice cubes in to make sure they're kept hydrated,

and I'll put wet food in through the letterbox,

but there's a door that's separating the cats and the front door

so they've got no access

so I haven't been able to feed or water them.

Last time he visited Anthony put tape on the door.

If it's still there he'll know no-one has been in to look after the cats.

There's my seals that I've placed on Wednesday, there's my card,

seals on the door frame.

Obviously this door hasn't been opened,

so it looks like nobody's attending to the cats and they want to get out now.

It's definitely time for them to come out. You can see,

they just, they look fed up,

every time I've been there on the window ledge. They need to come out.

Their needs clearly aren't being met,

and if there is no food or water in there

it won't not be long before they become too weak to eat

and then they can become collapsed and die of starvation,

that's how it'll go.

The priority at that point then is to get in, however way I can,

and get the cats out, and it's usually get the police out.

Hello, mate, it's Anthony, one of the RSPCA inspectors.

I just wanted to get some assistance at an address in Birkenhead,

I need an officer to force entry to get the cats out, basically.

Great.

All right, mate, thanks very much. Cheers, bye bye.

We'll get you out in a minute.

While he waits for the police

Anthony takes photographs as evidence for any future prosecution.

Just starting to build a photo storybook, almost, really,

and then as soon as we force entry, we get in,

I'll take pictures of anything that's relevant,

evidentially, really.

The police arrive to help Anthony get into the abandoned house.

I'm not going to lie, it was interesting, it was quite exciting,

but these people are going to leave their animals locked in properties

for days on end with no food and water,

then they can expect to have their door put in by the police.

Hello, police!

Inside, just the smell was horrendous.

Oh!

Just ammonia burning your eyelids.

Oh...

The house just stinks of faeces.

Litter trays overflowing, just disgusting.

Some faeces there has got mould on it,

they've been left here to perish, to be honest.

The cats are clearly hungry and close to starvation.

Empty, everything is empty.

You could see where some of the boxes

and cat biscuit bags had been ripped open.

They've ripped everything to shreds.

Animals shouldn't have too look for food in desperation like that

when they're somebody's pet. It's bang out of order.

They could have filled this bowl of water up, it's bone dry.

Words fail me, sometimes.

I've known cats in the past to do well

because the toilet seat's been open

or there's been a dripping tap in the kitchen, but there was nothing.

I can feel she's starting to lose her condition now,

it wouldn't be long until she was in real trouble, collapsed

and starving to death. Unbelievable.

Luckily we got in at the right time, really.

You can't just do one and then this is what happens,

it's why I do the job, because I'll hunt them down now.

The police can legally seize the cats.

I'm going to go and get two baskets

and I'll come back in and we'll get them secure now.

But now it's down to Anthony to catch them.

Something we'll see him wrestle with later in the programme.

In Leeds, Inspector Sally Wren

is on her way to what sounds like a routine call.

But when she arrives, she's in for a surprise.

Oh, it's a pig.

I wasn't expecting a pig!

This was the first pig that I'd ever come across, certainly

in a backyard in a housing estate.

As Sally sizes up the tiny hog two dogs emerge from the house.

Along with their owner.

We've just had a call from somebody a bit concerned

that your Jack Russells were looking a bit on the thin side.

-No, it's got worms, I've took it to the vet.

-Right.

I'll bring it out, actually.

Both dogs appeared in quite a healthy condition.

I then asked her to see where they were being kept

when they were outside so she showed us around to the back of the property.

For Sally, the conditions in the back garden are far from ideal.

I was obviously concerned,

even if they were there for a short period of time,

it was full of faeces, it wasn't a good environment at all.

You just need to keep on top of your dog dirt, every day, really,

cos it does build up very quickly, especially with two dogs.

They only go out there if they need a wee or owt like that then they come straight back in.

In my other house it had a kennel, everything.

That's what I was going to say.

Under the law they must have a shelter

and if we were to come round here and it were raining, you weren't in

and the dogs were outdoors with no shelter.

I don't leave them out, I bring them in.

Time to check out the micro pig, but there's a problem.

When we got back we realised that

because the fence wasn't very secure the pig had escaped.

There's a pig on the loose on a housing estate in Leeds.

Having not come across this situation before

none of us were experts at catching pigs,

so the lady herself seemed quite,

actually quite frightened of going near the pig.

Try and get it in this sheet.

Maybe try and herd it into a corner, like down there.

There certainly was times during the pursuit

that it did all become a little bit unreal.

I think there was a child on a tricycle at one point joining in

and all sorts.

I was slightly self-conscious,

I was also thinking the main thing was to try and get the pig!

Although it looks cute the animal is far better suited

to a farmyard than a back garden.

It sort of illustrates when people take on animals

that perhaps don't have all the knowledge for looking after.

Finally the nervy owner gets her hands on the escapee.

And unsurprisingly it squeals like a pig.

Do you want me to take it off you?

I'm scared of it.

Sally takes over, and puts the pig in a blanket.

This wasn't quite what I expected, when I came about two Jack Russells.

Although there was times when it did sort of seem slightly comical,

in all reality, actually,

it was a pig that was probably quite distressed,

quite confused, and in a very alien environment.

So this is where the pig's living at night, is it?

It had just been put in a Wendy house, really,

with very little thought to that environment being created safely for it.

When I'm pressing that there's all kind of obstacles,

just things like this, the pig's obviously been chewing that,

and that's going to go in its stomach, isn't it?

And if it's got plastic and stuff in its stomach it could cause

a major medical problem for it.

Animals can ingest plastic or things like that,

it can cause a blockage in their stomach, so that was an obvious concern.

Pigs will eat rubbish,

and there is obviously things here

that it could obviously choke on or something like that.

She's got it because she thought it was going to be something cute

that she could take into the house.

She was saying it was pooing in the house,

doing things that are very normal to the animal,

and she very quickly realised it didn't turn out

to be quite what she expect it.

The first person that comes along and wants it,

they're happy to have it.

Is just a bit hard to look after it.

I'd rather just have my dogs and my fish.

Yeah, I think even though they look cute and they look like a pet,

they are actually, really, are farm animals

who have really different needs from dogs and cats.

I mean, really I would say pigs are sociable animals

and would be a lot better kept with another pig

than with two Jack Russells.

The pig's living conditions are deemed unacceptable

and the situation needs resolving.

Do you want me to make enquiries

-about whether we could help with re-homing it?

-If you like, yes.

Do you think you'd get a pig again, then?

No, never again.

It is too much hassle.

It is too much hassle when you think about it,

I didn't think it would be that bad.

And then I wanted a monkey, but that's even harder.

I just want all these little animals.

Yeah, I think maybe avoid a monkey, stick to the dogs for now.

This was a learning curve for me

because this is kind of the first time

I'd come across a pig in this situation,

but rather worryingly I fear it might not be the last.

It just shows how animals can be regarded as the latest fashion,

the latest accessory,

whereas animals aren't that,

animals are not a possession that we should just take lightly.

Back in Birkenhead

Inspector Anthony Joynes is rescuing two cats abandoned in a house.

But first, he needs to catch them.

The first cat, the little tabby cat,

she followed me around as soon as I walked into the house.

You just want some food.

But the second cat, she disappeared.

Nothing ran past us when we went in, did it?

There's no way she got out.

What is going on?

There it is. Close the doors. Is it down here?

We found her underneath some clothes in a linen basket upstairs.

Gave me the worries that, I thought it was well gone!

That was a good hiding place, that.

With both cats finally in his grasp

Anthony can take them straight to the vet.

Words fail me, to be honest,

with how disgusting it was in there, the smell.

It's what we have to deal with every day.

I don't think you ever get used to it, really.

It just looks like they've just been left to rot, in my opinion.

Anthony doesn't know when the cats last ate or drank,

and they could be starving and dehydrated.

CAT MIAOWS

Come on, then.

At the vets

it's clear this cat is desperate for food.

She looks quite hungry. Flipping heck.

She is on the hungry side, it has to be said.

Have a look at that in a minute.

Maybe we'll look at the other first.

But, apart from being very hungry,

remarkably both cats are given the all clear.

She's not dehydrated, I don't think.

If it had been left longer than it would have been a different matter.

It seems like Anthony got to them just in time.

That is fantastic, we got them out,

and now they'll be going up for looking for a new home.

Two months on, both cats have been re-homed with the Boates family.

Yeah!

Brothers Louis and Sebastian

are finally giving them the attention they need.

They're settling in really well.

They're used to us.

They'd used to us and we let them outside now and they're fine, really.

They're used to when we come in from school.

They're definitely part of our lives now

and they've definitely settled into a family quite well.

But while tabby Sassy looks perfectly at home

black-and-white Cybil is still a little shy.

Cybil, come on.

And good at hiding.

Good girl, come on.

She still a bit nervous, really,

about everything, but she's getting much better lately.

And back under she goes.

It's a big change for both cats,

they've come a long way from where they started.

Taking on a couple of rescue cats is a big thing for us,

because we've only ever had fish for pets,

and I think it's better just buying them from the RSPCA

to give them a second chance than just going to a pet shop.

When the doors are open

Cybil and Sassy make the most of their newfound freedom.

There she goes again.

But from now on they'll be someone waiting for them

when they come home.

At the RSPCA national control centre

operators deal with thousands of calls around the clock,

365 days a year.

But there is one thing that turns the emergency phone lines redhot.

What animal was your call regarding today?

When there's flooding

the call volumes seem to go up quite dramatically.

We get calls from anything about any animal in a field,

it could be a horse, sheep, goat, donkey.

Right, so it's a very small space.

Yeah.

We have got the weather reports up constantly on the units,

it helps us pre-empt what kind of calls were going to get

and what action we can take.

That information has been logged on our system

and an officer will assess the best course of action.

In the Midlands heavy rain has led to severe floods.

Local Inspector Jason Finch and his colleagues

have formed a rescue team to respond.

We'd had a lot of rain that weekend across the country

and it had been falling over a period of days.

There are millions of eyes out there,

so we're totally reliant on the public to ring in,

tell us where there is a problem, and what the problem is.

One call immediately becomes a priority for the rescue team.

If there's any inkling

that they may be in danger that comes way up the priority list,

it's one of those jobs we'll go to quickly.

On arrival it's clear the horses need help.

HORSES WHINNY

They're surrounded by water.

Can they eat? Can they feed?

The problem for these horses

is they are tethered to a post,

via a chain,

attached to their neck,

so they don't have the option

of getting out of the water even if they wanted to.

Jason decides to send in the team.

The priority then is to get our kit on which is dry suits,

buoyancy aids, helmets,

everything the guys need

to keep themselves safe and dry and warm in the water.

Does one of you want to pad over and have a look?

All the team are regular RSPCA inspectors who've been trained in flood rescues.

They are tethered in an area where we suspect

the water is going to continue to rise,

and from what we can gather

this particular dark bay has been stood in the water since yesterday.

It's difficult terrain for the inspectors.

They are using poles to feel their way.

Most fields have barbed wire, fences, gates, there may be ditches,

holes that you can't see now,

because the water has covered them.

We can't see anything under the vegetation there,

so although it looks as though it could be fairly shallow,

we don't know the area so it could be quite a deep drop.

The team's first job is to comfort and calm the distressed horse.

And then carefully free the tether from its post.

The guys have just been in,

taken that tether post up,

move the horse onto some dry land, so it's out of the water

and now it can graze.

With this horse safe on dry land

the rescue team move on to the next emergency call.

When the team arrive there is a large number of horses,

but they're not in immediate danger.

There must be 30 horses here

that have made their way onto the only bit of dry land on the field,

the rest of the field is flooded.

But then Jason spots two animals in trouble.

There's two horses up there.

They were small ponies, the water could keep coming up,

and it just gets more and more dangerous.

So if we don't go with our specialist equipment and kit

the animals are just left in situ, and it sometimes can be fatal, yes.

The team heads out to try and lure them back to dry land,

but they have no idea how the horses will react.

They'll either stress and try to run through the water

and panic trying to get out of it,

or they will literally just stand there and watch it happen.

They decide to come around the back of the horses,

spread themselves out

to create a sort of half moon cordon around the back of the horses.

The team do everything they can to keep the horses calm.

These jobs are always slow,

as slow as you can do it, the slower

and more gently you can treat the animals

the less likely they are to spook, run,

potentially hurt the people who are trying to rescue them.

The horses are brought back to the herd and safety.

We just needed to make sure they weren't tangled or stuck in any way.

The likelihood is some of these guys will, as you can see, wander into the water.

There's not a great deal you can do about it.

If they choose to go back in the water,

we haven't got the resources to stand there

and watch them for 24 hours until the water's gone.

Happy that the horses now know the way back to dry land,

the team move on.

As the light fades they continue to carefully sweep the flooded area.

It's a huge part of what we do now, the incidence of flooding

are on the rise every year,

it's vital piece of our work.

Thankfully it doesn't seem that any other animals are trapped or injured.

And with conditions forecast to improve,

Jason and his team should be back on normal duties soon.

We don't know what were going to face from one day to the next,

but at the end of the day that is what we do,

that is what the society is about,

we're there for the animal, whatever the situation may be.

Operators at the call centre

are used to hearing about animals in need of help.

How wide is the window ledge that he's on? How big is it?

And quite often the animals only have themselves to blame.

It's not unusual to get a call about an animal that's got itself

in a predicament which it absolutely cannot get itself out of.

What animal is your call regarding today?

Right.

For most callers advice on how to coax an animal out

or free at is all that's needed.

But sometimes an animal will be in serious danger.

In east London Inspector Clare Dew

who has been called by the fire brigade

who are trying to rescue a large dog stuck in a disused basement.

It's your dog, is it? What happened?

The fire brigade

were willing to lift it but just wanted me to check

that was the safest to do with the animal

although quite frankly how else we were going to get it out of there I've no idea.

It's all right. Have we got any more light?

The situation that the dog was in

was the bottom of a very narrow set of stairs, it was pitch black,

the only light was a light the fire brigade had provided.

DOG GROWLS

That is a big, overweight dog. Flipping 'eck!

The dog, called Sam,

is a large bull mastiff and he's obviously not happy.

At that point I could see the dog was really uncomfortable,

on its back legs, he doesn't want to be touched there.

I think he's just bruised himself, quite sore.

I can't see anything obvious, any blood or anything,

but it's quite obviously had some trauma there.

Just hold him really tight for me, yes.

I'm not worried about getting bitten.

He won't bite. He's not a bitey type.

No, but he's in pain.

Sam might be friendly most of the time but he's in agony.

DOG GROWLS

-Up you get!

-Come on, Sam!

It certainly looks like the animal is trying to kill everyone but it isn't,

it's just trying to let everyone know that it's in a lot of pain.

DOG GROWLS

No, Sam.

Come on, Sam.

Sam is becoming more and more distressed,

he could bite at any moment.

For Clare, there's only one option.

Let's get a muzzle on him.

This is a big dog that potentially could cause quite a lot of injury.

Muzzling was a number one priority.

It might have taken an extra minute or two

but at least in the long run

when were all going to be quite near to the bitey sharp end of that dog, it's the best thing.

Just hold him. Up, up. That said, mind yourself, yes? Get him stood up.

That's it.

With the muzzle on, Sam can be lifted safely into the basket.

Straight up. Go. That's it.

And again.

Good dog.

But then there's another threat in this small stairwell.

Stinky fart!

The dog shows he's obviously quite distressed

and part of that is the dog releases itself, it farts, essentially.

-Stinky fart.

-It was, wasn't it?

Now, that's quite normal and I would not necessarily be fazed by that,

but in that tiny area,

a fart from that dog was quite potent.

I think that's James!

And we were all having a bit of a laugh about it

which I think relaxed us, relaxed the fire brigade and actually relaxed the dog.

Finally Sam's ready to be moved upstairs.

Good boy, come on. Good dog.

And into his owner's van.

Keep the momentum going, get him in the van.

Van open?

I was really pleased with that, I think it was a good solution all round.

Sam can now be taken to the vets for a full checkup.

Right, he's sitting up, that's good. That's good.

And hopefully he'll be back on his feet in no time.

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