Episode 5 Animal Frontline

Good afternoon, RSPCA Control Centre.

Is the cat still breathing?

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 officers.

From neglected pets to injured wildlife...

..for the trained inspectors, every shift is a challenge.

We're going!

It's disgusting.

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, a stomach of iron

and a sense of humour.

On this episode of Animal Frontline -

calls to tethered horses feared neglected and abandoned.

The unwanted dogs left to starve.

There's a good girl!

And Inspector Sarah Keith deals with a slippery customer.

I'm not...big into reptiles, no.

In Stoke, Inspector Jayne Bashford is on her way

to a seemingly routine complaint.

We had a call come through to us

regarding a cat or cats at the address that were in poor condition.

But after five years on the job,

Jayne knows nothing is straightforward.

The address, on checks through our computer system,

showed that the occupants of the property had been previously

prosecuted by the RSPCA.

'You have to have that information at the forefront of your mind'

when you get that call,

but I always try to approach it

with as much of an open mind as you possibly can.

We've had a call about a cat that looks really ill.

Have you got any cats?

-Yeah, I've got cats, yeah, but...

-Anything wrong with them?

-No.

-Can I have a look at them?

-Yeah.

Vicky lets Jayne in.

She hasn't been prosecuted for animal cruelty before,

it was her mother and brother, who are both out.

But the family all own numerous cats and kittens.

There's three of them.

-Oh, wow!

-There's two of them.

-There's another one.

-Right.

Oi! Naughty!

How many cats have you got in total, Vicky?

-We've got seven.

-You've got seven.

Jayne isn't worried about the numbers, but the cats' health.

All of the cats are displaying symptoms of having flea infestations.

You've got the lady who was, she was coughing and spluttering.

SHE COUGHS

And then, amongst all her coughing and spluttering,

you started to notice that individual cats were also sneezing

and coughing and spluttering.

A couple of them have got particularly sticky eyes,

some discharge, they were all displaying symptoms of cat flu.

I'm just getting a bit concerned

-that you might have some cat flu in the house.

-Yeah.

Have you lost any cats to any illnesses?

-No.

-Are you sure?

-I think so.

Mmm.

The problem with cat flu in a multi-cat household,

it will spread like wildfire.

Jayne's concerned that there's an outbreak of cat flu

and the kittens are particularly vulnerable.

Their immunity isn't great.

You know, they're still developing their immunity,

so, to see kittens with these symptoms,

you just know that something needs to be done.

They need to see a vet sooner rather than later, to be honest.

Obviously, we'll take Mum with them

so that they're not distressed like that.

If it's obvious that somebody isn't going to take the initiative

and think, "Right, you know, I've got an RSPCA inspector on the doorstep,

"I've got these cats that are displaying sings of illness,

"I need to take them to the vet's."

That wasn't coming forward from her herself.

So I had to take the decision to say to her,

"Look, these animals are raising concerns to me,

"I need to take them to a vet."

Jayne's suspicions about the cats are confirmed.

Have they got flu?

-Yes, they've all got cat flu.

-Right.

The only one we haven't looked at yet is Mum, so we'll do her next,

but all the kittens have got cat flu,

so I'm sure Mum will have it too.

It's bizarre, isn't it, that you can knock a door and say to somebody,

"Have you got a cat with a dishevelled tail?"

And they let you in, and then you discover a whole raft

of other, far more serious, animal welfare issues going on.

Back at the house, Vicky's mum is home,

and both now have serious issues to deal with.

An independent veterinary surgeon has looked at those animals

and she's confirmed that they've all got cat flu.

-Is that why their eyes keep going...?

-That's exactly what it is.

Cat flu is going to go through this house like a dose of salts

and it's potentially fatal, OK?

The remaining adult cats need to go to a veterinary surgeon

-within the next 14 days.

-Right.

For the infected cats,

Jayne has eye drops and antibiotics from the vet's.

A simple inoculation would prevent the others from catching it.

If, in 14 days, this isn't complied with,

I'll have no other option to remove every cat here.

Jayne cautions Vicky and Janice

for not taking the cats to the vet's before

and hopes this time they'll take note.

This is an opportunity for you guys now to get this sorted out.

I'm not asking them to perform ridiculous tasks,

just take your animals to the vet's.

Don't let me down, guys, all right?

I'll see you in a couple of weeks, all right?

-See you then, bye-bye!

-Bye, thank you.

Animal neglect often occurs behind closed doors and goes unreported,

but when a distressed animal is in clear public view, people react.

Is it just sort of churned-up mud that he's in?

It does upset people when they see tethered animals,

it does restrict where the animal gets to go

and it's nice to see an animal being able to move freely in its own environment.

However, when they're tethered,

they just...they're not able to do that at all.

And is it, is it wearing a rug

or anything like that?

No, nothing.

HORSE NEIGHS

In the North East, Inspector Jaqui Miller sees unattended

and often neglected ponies time and time again.

We can get calls, anything between two and three calls a day,

about tethered horses and with no water,

tethered horses with no blanket,

tethered horses that are living in mud.

Today's call is to horses on playing fields in Gateshead.

It's a sight Jaqui knows well.

There's about four or five different people that have horses on here.

Every single one of them are tethered.

Recent bad weather has left locals concerned about the horses' welfare.

The weather had been pretty bad

and a few of the horses were just in massive, deep...

Plodging around in mud.

This has probably only been here about a day.

It's just because the ground is so saturated and sodden,

they're just churning it up in seconds.

Um...

Tethering isn't illegal,

but it can cause welfare issues if not done properly.

There's all sorts of problems with tethering

and this is why it bugs me so much.

They can get their legs wrapped round the tether,

they can get their nails stuck in the actual tethering line.

They'll get stressed,

they'll roll around and they get wrapped up in the tether even more,

you know, and unfortunately, they can strangle themselves with that.

To me, if you've got a horse, you find a stable and a field,

then you buy the horse.

You know, it's the same if you go and get a hamster.

You buy the hamster cage and the food and the water bottle,

and then you bring your hamster home.

Whereas, around here, it's a case of,

"I'll go down to the horse market and I'll buy a horse for a fiver,

"I'll get a tether and I'll stick it on a piece of land."

Thankfully, this horse is tethered correctly.

That's one sort of swivel clip there.

This stops the tether getting all curled up and around.

But the horse at the other side of the field is not.

What on earth is that?

It's just gone and wrapped itself round and round and round and round.

It's just ridiculous.

Because they were inappropriate chains,

they've wrapped around themselves

and they've got literally from about a three-metre-long tether

down to about a metre.

So I had to, basically, uncurl the tethers,

so, at least, I knew when I left they weren't stuck up

and they weren't screwed up

and that they could move a bit more freely than where they were.

Is that better?

I'm finding it difficult to move, so I'm sure he is as well.

There's no shelter for any of these horses.

And some only have trodden, fouled grass to eat.

But all Jaqui can do is leave a note for the absent owner.

Just about reminding them

that he needs to be checking on him at least twice a day.

And he needs to be changing his tether line

to something more suitable,

that's not going to get wound up like that.

It's just an accident waiting to happen.

It's frustrating for Jaqui.

But this is just one of an estimated 3,500 tethered horses in the UK.

It's a growing problem, but all inspectors can do in these cases

is check the welfare of the animal.

In a different area of Gateshead,

Jaqui visits another horse that's been attracting a lot of attention.

The story with this horse was that no-one would be looking after him

and no-one had been attending to him.

But it wasn't that we'd had ONE call about it -

we'd had about five calls about it

from every single neighbour that looked out onto this field.

The report suggests the owner is not feeding or watering the horse.

You're probably enjoying the lovely warmth, aren't you, this morning?

But, on arrival, he looks in good shape.

Jaqui soon finds out why.

So what's the story with him then?

Never seen anybody come to see to him or anything.

It's my partner who's been moving him around,

-you can see how many times he's been moved round the field.

-Right.

The locals have been trying to look after him themselves.

But, ironically, their good deed for the horse makes Jaqui's job harder.

By filling up his water and by moving it,

I then can't establish whether or not it's the owner

who's gone and filled up that water bucket

or if it's the people who are helping looking after it.

It's awful, it's frustrating, it's a horrible thing to say,

-but tethering is not illegal.

-I know.

If he's been here for four weeks and no-one had attended to him

and he was just left in a big massive circle,

that's my evidence to prove that no-one is coming to attend to him.

Yeah.

And then, all of a sudden, the owner rocks up!

'And I just reiterate'

what they need to be doing

and what that horse needed to be provided with.

-You need to come down every day, OK?

-I've come down every morning and every night.

-What time do you come?

-Eh?

-What time do you come?

-Eight in the morning and half-nine at night.

Neighbours are saying one thing, he's saying another.

-What do you bring him?

-Nothing, at the minute, he's just eating grass.

At this time of year, there's not really a lot of goodness in that grass, OK?

And you really need to be bringing some haylage down,

some extra supplementary feed, OK?

With more bad weather forecast,

Jaqui is keen for the owner to provide shelter for the horse.

-What's your plans with him?

-Just going to the stables.

-Right. So that's probably within the next week or so?

-Hopefully, yeah.

If you can do that for me, I'll be a very happy lady, OK?

And I'm sure it'll be a lot better for him as well.

-No bother at all.

-OK, thank you.

-Cheers, thanks, see you later.

Just gave him a bit of advice, you know,

but he's indicating that the actual pony is getting moved

in the next week or so to stables for the rest of the winter.

So, you know, I'll just check up next week,

just to make sure he's done what I've asked him.

And after persistent calls from Jaqui,

this horse was eventually moved into stables.

But thousands of others across the UK are not so lucky.

It's becoming more and more common.

The problem is, it's not illegal.

Until tethering is made illegal,

we've just got to work with these people

and highlight to them what the problems are.

In Stoke, Jayne Bashford is returning to see Vicky

and her mum, Janice.

It's two weeks since she issued them a warning

to take all their cats to the vet's after an outbreak of cat flu.

Hiya.

The news at the house is not good.

Sadly, some of the cats had either died...

..or had had to be put to sleep by the vet.

The cats that died were the kittens and their mother.

Although Jayne had taken them to the vet's,

it had been too late to save them.

-How many have you got now?

-Six.

-You've still got six?

-Yeah.

And how many of those six have been to the vet's?

Three of them have been...

No, four, cos Kit's been as well.

So there's two more that need to go.

'And it makes you think,'

"Right, you know, this is, OK, this is going to be difficult, then."

So, here we are, nearly a month on, and they've still got fleas

and two of them still haven't been to the vet's, have they?

-So it's frust...

-We're trying the best we can.

I mean, I'm not forking out on taxis when we're on benefits.

Right, so why take on so many cats when you can't afford them?

We can't afford them? We can afford to feed them.

But you've just told me you're not prepared to fork out on a taxi.

No, when you don't have to, you're being forced to!

You've knocked on here cos you've had a report

of a cat with a mangy tail,

so now we've got to take all the other cats to the vet's.

-Yeah, they have been diagnosed with cat flu...

-But there you go then.

But you shouldn't even be knocking on the door!

MOBILE PHONE RINGS

Hello?

BLEEP...

'When you're in the middle of discussing something'

that's really quite potentially very serious with them

and the phone goes and somebody just completely ignores you

'and drops you in what you're saying and answers the phone...'

'..and then proceeds to have a lengthy conversation with somebody'

about money that is going to be spent on presents...

Don't know.

'..and then puts the phone down, having sworn about you'

whilst you're in the room, saying, you know, "Oh, the...RSPCA are here,"

'it's just... It's just really annoying.'

Can I just make an observation?

-You've just told me you've got no money...

-Yeah.

Can I make the suggestion that money is not spent on Emeli Sande CDs...

-It's for me birthday.

-For your birthday?

-Yeah.

Maybe keep the tenner for the CD

to put it towards the treatment of your cats.

Jayne's exasperated, but she still wants to find a solution.

So what I'm prepared to do is extend the warning notice

to give you the opportunity

to get the remaining two cats sorted out, OK?

But you can't just get angry

and start blaming everybody else in the world

for the fact that your cats did need vet...urgent veterinary attention.

If I come back next week and you still haven't complied,

I'm going to have no other option than to escalate it.

Anybody that knows me out of work knows that...I do have a fiery side.

However, as tempting as it is

to really, really let rip,

there's no point, cos you've lost your argument then.

All right? I'll see you next week, all right.

You can get in the van and you can scream and tear your hair out.

SHE CHUCKLES

Oh...

But I won't let them see that when I'm in the house.

Well, not very often, anyway.

A week later, Jayne returns to see Vicky and her family,

hoping the message has finally got through.

'I'd like to say I'm optimistic that we're going to knock on the door

'and everything is going to be wonderful

'and it's going to be cat utopia,

'but I just feel that we're going to have a few problems.'

-Hello, my love, please tell me you've got some good news for me.

-Yes.

-Have you?

-Yes.

'Final visit to the address,'

they still hadn't taken all of the cats to the vet's.

'But none of the cats now were displaying any symptoms of,

'you know, flu or coughing or...you know, they all looked to be OK.'

With the exception of fleas,

cos they still hadn't sought any flea treatments.

The big difference I've noticed today

is that the remaining cats that are here,

-their eyes are clear, there's no sneezing.

-Yeah.

You don't half like leaving things to the last minute, don't you?

And don't get me wrong, I am sympathetic to the fact

that we're all on hard times at the moment, you know.

But, equally...

..if you can't afford them, don't have them.

Nobody comes to you with a litter of kittens

and forces you to take them on.

You've got to take responsibility for it yourself.

'It's a little disheartening when you have to keep coming back

'and keep on giving advice to people over and over again'

and I'll come back again in a few week's time

and we'll see where we're at.

As long as they haven't filled the house back up with cats,

then I'll be a happy woman.

Good morning, RSPCA Control Centre, can I take your full name, please?

The vast majority of calls to the RSPCA are about cats and dogs.

But they deal with any animal in need of help.

No matter how unusual.

Bemused Humberside inspector Sarah Keith

is responding to the report of the rogue reptile.

We just had a call off a lady

who's called in a collection of a snake.

So I rung her

and she's not at home.

So we're going to go and have a little look.

There are quite a lot of reptile enthusiasts in Hull

and people who breed snakes.

I'm not...big into reptiles, no.

Sarah has no idea what species of snake is waiting

on the driveway of the home,

where it came from or how dangerous it might be.

She said that there'd been another snake in the area,

so I thought, "Well, it's someone who's breeding them

"and they're just, they're escaping out of, you know,

"the vivarium where they're being housed in."

Sarah makes a cautious approach.

When we got there, I couldn't see anything.

And, eventually, on the ground, there was a little...

It looked dead,

I genuinely thought it was dead until I poked it a bit and then it moved.

The snake is cold and lifeless.

Sarah thinks it could be an escaped pet

that somebody might be searching for.

Whenever we find a stray animal,

we stick a poster up with the incident number that relates to that

so if the owner sees the poster,

they can ring in and get their animal back.

Hopefully, they'll see the sign, realise they've got one that escaped

and go pick it up from the vet's.

The snake is not very active and could be ill.

Sarah decides it might need veterinary attention.

I didn't recognise what it was,

so best thing you can do in that situation is go get it identified.

Sarah hopes if she can identify the species of snake,

she can find out where it's come from.

So what's the story?

We just found this stray in someone's garden.

It's been there for a couple of days, hanging around in the front garden area...

-Honest?

-Yeah.

I know, she rang in and I was, "It's not going to be there." And it was.

But vet John Levison isn't convinced the snake is anybody's pet at all.

I think it might be a grass snake.

He thinks it's a wild British snake.

The markings on it looked like a native species,

but the colouring was wrong so, er...we googled it.

-Oh, look at that.

-That...

It's a grass snake, innit?

The snake isn't from an exotic country.

It actually comes from Hull.

This is a native snake, will not harm you.

In Hull, I've never had a native snake, I've only ever had escapees,

-cos I thought it was actually an escapee at first.

-Right.

I thought, "It's only a baby."

-Well, I do.

-We learnt something today.

It was a grass snake,

but I discovered since

that it was actually a grass snake in the middle of its shed,

which was why it was a different colour,

so...mystery solved in the end,

with the help of Google.

In the capital, Inspector Clare Dew has an urgent job.

A call has come in

saying two dogs have been starved at a North London address

and they're in very poor health.

But the complainant has waited two weeks to report their concerns.

I've got to get into this address today,

because, obviously, this call came in only last night,

but claims these dogs were in this situation two weeks ago,

so I can't afford to leave it any longer.

If the animals were that bad two weeks ago, how bad are they today?

Clare decides to take a colleague with her for back-up.

I thought it was advisable that two of us go.

There were supposed to be a number of young people at the address,

didn't know too much about the breed of the dogs,

they were supposed to be emaciated, falling over, near to death...

That can be quite an inflammatory situation.

Sometimes, two people are better than one trying to deal with that.

No dog food.

Inspector Becky Bedson joins her on the call.

-Hello.

-Hello, mate.

-We've had a call about your dogs, can we come in a sec?

-Yeah.

-Thank you.

Clare and Becky are allowed in and quickly see that the dogs,

a Staffy and a Great Dane cross, are in poor condition.

Your dogs are really thin, so why are they really thin?

What food have you got in the house? Show me dog food.

It became quite clear that between the three people didn't really know

whether there was any food in the house!

What did you feed them last night? Where's the package from last night or this morning?

And I think the elder of the three people actually said,

"Well, dogs are always hungry. And they're always thin."

No, they're not always hungry and they certainly don't look like that

and they're quite clearly starving.

The owners won't accept that there's anything wrong with the dogs.

We were both very frustrated by this point,

cos we were just going round and round in circles,

to which point I think my colleague said,

"Look, you've got two options - we'll either give you a notice

"so you sort it out, or we'll take the dogs."

And they said, "Fine, take them."

Now, come on. Come on.

There's a good girl.

The unwanted dogs are led out.

They're so thin you can see their ribs.

I know you're hungry, we'll get you something in a minute, come on.

I know, come on. There's a good girl!

'I was really quite sad, actually.'

It's like, you don't want that dog, just like that,

just because someone's told you that they're going to take it.

Why did you have the two dogs in the first place?

There's a good boy. Come on, let's go and get in the car.

'I don't understand how anyone could just give anything up like that,'

but we're in a disposable society today.

That dog's not in fashion, those trainers aren't in fashion,

that phone isn't in fashion, let's trade it in.

If someone wants to take the old one away, that's great.

After a trip to the vet's, Clare takes the dogs to nearby kennels.

Good boy! Good girl, come on!

Look, come on, this is where we're going. It's nice in here.

They have scars from fighting over food and they're underweight,

but, thankfully, there's no long-term damage.

There you go!

Here's a good boy! Go!

And a few weeks later, they've both put on weight

and were found new owners.

SHE LAUGHS

In this case, there was a really good result for both of those dogs.

'It was really easy to find them new homes.

'They're nice dogs, well socialised, fine with people.'

You want to play? Oh, you want to play?

'And now, they'll be in a home'

where they'll be treated in the way a dog should be

and any living breathing thing should be -

'it isn't worried about where its next meal is coming from

'or whether it's going to get a walk round the block.'

Oh!

Yeah, I think they'll both be quite happy.

There's a good girl.

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