Episode 2 Animal SOS

Good afternoon, RSPCA control centre.

What animal is your call regarding today?

In the UK, someone calls the RSPCA every 30 seconds.

Exactly what did you see?

So, they're left outside in all weathers and they've got no bedding or shelter from the rain?

24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

I don't want you to go too close to it because swans can be very,

very dangerous.

When an animal needs help, the emergency line is open.

Do you know something, I've had non-stop calls for the past hour.

All right, take care, bye-bye.

Got a bit of a rough throat now.

It's cos I don't shut up.

Filming as the calls come in...

..and when inspectors respond on the ground...

I'll pass this information through to the officer.

So close.

..rescuing everything from injured wildlife to neglected pets...

Every shift is a challenge.

CAT GROWLS

Rhea, one, RSPCA, nil.

There's no such thing as a typical day as an RSPCA inspector.

Get... Oh, my Lord!

We never know what we're going to deal with.

No two days are the same.

-You're keeping a dog out there? That's disgusting!

-Whoa, there!

It can get to the point where you feel like you're banging your head against a brick wall.

It's dirty, sweaty...

It stuns me sometimes, the smells that I come across.

-SHE CHOKES

-Sorry.

There's not a lot a lot of glamour in my role.

Even if you've just helped one animal...

Hi, mate.

..it's worth it.

Today, on the run, an exotic visitor to the Sussex countryside...

So what's going to happen now then?

Inspector Emma Ellis struggles to help a man and his dog.

And the seals nursed back to health and heading for the wild.

She's keen.

At the National Control Centre, far-fetched calls are common...

Right.

Yeah, I mean, we've had sightings of Bigfoot.

Beast of Bodmin Moor once.

Yeah, I don't dispute you there, sir, I don't dispute you.

Last Boxing Day, I received an anonymous call.

He was trying to tell me that there was a humpback whale in his pond...

with a horse hanging out of it.

And they have a practised way of dealing with them.

You know, but you've got to like, try not to laugh.

OK.

Hello, is there anybody there?

Hello... It's gone.

He's hung up on me.

But sometimes, the incredible turns out to be true.

An emu in rural Sussex may sound unlikely

but there is another call.

Intrigued, local inspector Tony Woodley sets off to investigate...

..and he can't believe what he finds.

I was quite shocked, actually, to see

the bird just stood in the middle of the field, and there it was.

Not an ostrich, but actually a rhea.

It comes from South America, and they're up to about six foot tall.

Large, flightless birds, can't fly at all

and they're designed for running, very powerful legs.

I thought that this was going to be a challenge.

It wasn't immediately apparent that we were going to be able to

catch this bird.

On site is one of the callers who first spotted the bird.

I know it was seen last night for the first time.

We've actually had reports, I've just heard,

of there being a big bird in this area for a while.

Oh, really?

It's been a bit of a myth for a few weeks.

It's certainly no myth.

Tony may have no idea how the rhea got there, but it's very real,

and very fast.

Ideally, you don't want them to run.

Once they start running, they'll just run past you.

-Oh, absolutely.

-What we want to do is try and walk it, quietly.

Once it started running, it was going to be very difficult to catch it.

I can actually see my colleagues at the moment, running across that field.

I don't know where the bird is.

A rhea can run at speeds approaching 40 miles an hour.

Catching it is going to be near impossible.

But they decide to try.

Could be fun.

The thing with these large birds is that you're not going to outrun them.

But what you've got to try and think about is the environment, look at

what you can use to try and drive it in the direction that you want to.

With years of experience catching wildlife,

Tony and the team know they need a plan.

I managed to get quite a large blanket and the idea was,

if we can get it cornered, perhaps we may be able to actually

throw the blanket over its head, because that will actually

help the bird to be quieter, if you can get a blanket over its head.

The plan is that we're going to try and draw it up this way, try and

use this bit of fence, to try and funnel it into this tennis court.

With the odds stacked against them,

the team starts to move towards the rhea.

But the bird isn't fooled! It's quickly off in the other direction.

It looks quite comical and, you know,

we did have a bit of a laugh between us.

But I didn't really want it to turn into a Benny Hill sketch too much.

After giving them the run-around, the rhea spots an escape route.

Oh, no, don't go through there!

It's managed to... I'm not going to say outfox us,

but...or outthink us, certainly it's outrun us.

With the rhea nowhere in sight, the team is forced to admit defeat...

Oh, dear.

..and a bit of South America is alive and well in the British countryside.

It was disappointing that we hadn't caught it. I wasn't overly

worried about its welfare because I'd seen the bird itself

was in good condition, and the conditions in that area are actually

not too bad. This bird's probably going to survive reasonably well.

It's disappointing, but Tony will have to wait till it

"rheas" its head again before he gets another chance.

Today, I think its rhea, one, and RSPCA, nil.

Oh!

There are some calls that the RSPCA hears day in, day out.

And what animal are you calling about there?

Dogs with itchy skin conditions are one of the most common.

Bradford inspector Emma Ellis is investigating this latest call.

When Emma arrives, owner Darius, and his dog Pipi are outside.

Hello!

He's a very good dog. He's very nice.

She's had puppies, has she?

Only one?

You could see that there was a problem, that the dog had hair loss.

So, this...have you had this looked at, this skin condition?

You could see that there was something that was obviously going to

be irritating the dog.

The dog had clearly been scratching at it.

You need to take her to a vets.

A private vets then, or the RSPCA vets.

Well, it depends what's wrong with her.

-Nothing, I think only this.

-No, there is something wrong with her

because she's got a skin problem

and she's very itchy.

I don't like having conversations with people on the street, so we go

inside and see that obviously there is a very young puppy in there.

Hello, gorgeous! Hello!

A closer look at the dog,

it becomes clear how much this skin condition will be affecting her.

If it's something like mange,

-she could quite easily pass it on to the puppy as well, yeah?

-Oh, right.

-So we don't want that to happen. Yeah?

-Obviously.

-OK.

The more itchy she is, and the more she bites at it,

and the more she scratches herself, the more it's going to hurt her.

The more it will hurt her, yeah.

-Which is what we want to avoid, isn't it?

-Yeah, yeah.

It's clear that Darius really loves his dog.

But keeping a pet is an expensive business

so Emma decides to help him.

If you want me to, I can phone up and try

-and make an appointment for you.

-Please, yeah.

Yeah? OK, no worries.

Hello, can I make an appointment for someone please?

Emma manages to get Darius in at the local RSPCA centre...

Perfect, you're a superstar. Thanks, Karen!

..which will be much cheaper than a private practice.

-So, if you miss this appointment...

-Oh, no.

OK, that's it, you won't be able to go there.

Oh, no, no, I'm going to go there, definitely.

All right? And that's my serious head, all right?

It's not good enough to leave her like that.

Emma's trusting Darius to get Pipi seen to

but she's also got concerns about the puppy's long-term care.

My advice to you, is once you've got her skin condition treated,

that you get the puppy rehomed

because I don't think you can cope with two dogs,

so think about that, OK?

And then I will follow up with you next week to make sure that

she's been to the vets.

-Yeah?

-Definitely.

-OK.

-Thank you very much.

No problem, thank you, see you later.

Having literally handed everything to him on a plate, I was reasonably

hopeful that he would do the very simple act of taking the dog to the

vets, which was very close to him, and the situation would improve.

But nine days later, Emma's optimism turns out to have been misplaced.

I checked with the vets today, and he hasn't been.

He didn't turn up to the vets.

So, we're going to go and check and see what's happening with the dog,

so we'll see.

But when Emma arrives, her first problem isn't Darius,

it's his neighbours.

Hiya.

It was heated before I even got out of the van.

Your son, where is he?

-OFF CAMERA:

-Oi! Who the

-BLEEP...

Excuse me?

People came from all over the place with a very strange attitude.

The atmosphere was very volatile...

Whoa, there!

..with people that had absolutely nothing to do with the dog.

What's it got to do with you? Hang on!

I didn't need to be dealing with them, so I just wanted them to go away.

So just do one!

Right, is your son in?

SPEAKS OWN LANGUAGE

Is he in?

Verbal abuse is like water off a duck's back, unfortunately.

And it's something we deal with very regularly.

It's not a great start

but Emma's priority is finding out why Darius hasn't been to the vets.

So, what's happened, then?

-You can't find it?

-I can't find it.

-Really?

-I'm really...

Right.

When you go out of your way to make sure that there was this

appointment for him, and then he hadn't even bothered to go,

it drives me absolutely mad.

You actually didn't try, did you?

No, I'll try, lovely, I'll try.

Well, I don't believe you.

Pipi still needs to see a vet, but unless Darius can

pay for private care, his options are now limited.

So what's going to happen now, then?

Well, I don't know, I don't know what to do.

The veterinary appointment was made for the sake of the dog.

And the fact that he hadn't done that means the dog is

continuing in the same situation which he

just didn't seem to get. He just didn't seem to understand that.

What on earth are you going to do then?

-Are you just going to leave the dog to get worse?

-No!

It's obvious to Emma that Darius isn't coping with Pipi

and her puppy.

He seemed very unattached from the whole situation

until somebody arrived at the door.

OFF-CAMERA SHOUTING IN ANOTHER LANGUAGE

Whoa there, whoa there, everyone chill!

And then, all hell broke loose.

Whoa! What's going on?

HE SHOUTS WILDLY

-Please go out from my house.

-Darius, Darius! OK, calm down.

Hang on, hang on, hang on.

What you're saying is you want to sign the dog over then? Yeah, OK.

In a sudden change of heart, Darius says he wants Emma to take the dogs.

I don't know what else is going on outside of it, but what

I am concerned about is what's going to happen with the dog, all right?

Even though she thinks it's for the best,

she needs to make sure he's not acting in the heat of the moment.

I can see you're upset, but do you not think it's the best

thing for the dog to go somewhere else?

After prolonged conversation, he eventually agreed to sign

both the mother and the puppy over.

Come on, then.

I'm pleased, because I think it's the right thing for the dogs.

He's obviously really upset,

and I think he genuinely does care about them, but he just

hasn't got the wherewithal to be doing what he needs to do.

Emma can finally get the dogs to the vets...

Clever girl!

..and they're both checked over.

Thankfully, the skin condition was nothing serious,

and she recovered brilliantly and very quickly.

The puppy was rehomed, and the mother, she's up for rehoming.

It's just satisfying knowing that our intervention has meant

those two dogs are going to have a very, very happy life.

The RSPCA is often called to animals that have been badly treated,

many, deliberately...

But sometimes even the most caring of owners can inadvertently

harm their animals.

At Manchester Animal Hospital, Tracy Mainwaring and her daughter Kia

are bringing their beloved German Shepherd, Zeus, to see David Yates.

Zeus Mainwaring?

Zeus has been limping badly and Tracy's worried.

Come on through. Are you OK?

Yeah, I'm all right.

Zeus is a lovely looking young German Shepherd who was

full of beans and energy when he came into the consulting room.

Do you want to tell me a bit about your dog?

He's in great health, he's perfectly fine.

He was running, and I don't know whether he's done it when he's

been running, but the other day, he was limping, lifting it up.

At first glance, Zeus looks like a normal, healthy dog.

So, how much exercise has he been getting?

Well, normally he has about three to four hours a day.

Three or four hours a day?

Yeah, two in the morning, two at night.

That's great to see a pet that's exercising and receiving all

that care and attention, but I did have concern that, because of

his age, that this may be a factor in the lameness that he'd got.

Now, when they're young dogs,

they've got what's called growth plates, you know where the cartilage

is in the bones? So that's probably a bit too much, that, for him.

Right.

You know, you can traumatise the growth plates, which can, you know,

make them a bit lame.

Zeus is a young dog, and he's still growing.

He's still got fairly immature bones.

All right, Zeus, all right.

A German Shepherd is a large, powerful dog,

but it can take a couple of years before it reaches skeletal maturity,

as we'd say, you know, where its bones are solid and strong.

I would think that three or four hours off lead,

running around, bouncing and chasing a ball, was excessive.

I think you're probably best doing little and often.

Zeus also has a bad ear infection and so David decides to

sedate him, to make examination of both areas easier.

All right.

Once Zeus is out, David sets to work on a thorough

examination of his legs and shoulders.

So I'm just having a feel of all the different joints,

just to check the movement on them.

Yeah, you can tell he's well-exercised,

his claws are worn down.

I'm just testing his hips a little bit.

His left hip, we'll just make a little note,

that's moving more than it should.

But he's still young, so don't worry about it.

But could Zeus's ear infection be related to his

exercise regime as well?

You can see, deep down in the canal there, there's quite

a lot of debris. We're going to have to give that a good clean.

Swimming is good in terms of exercise.

It's not very good for ears.

You get all kinds of weird bugs growing down here

if you get water stuck down there.

I'm just putting this cleaner down his ear.

You'll see in a minute what we get out of this.

Water in the ear canal of a dog can be problematic,

and can make it more likely to have infections in the future.

Especially if their head is going underneath the water,

that will be problematic for the normal function of the ear.

I'll just tilt his head over, wait.

The ear infection is treatable, but Tracy

and Kia now face an anxious wait while Zeus's legs are x-rayed.

Only then will they discover

whether the dog's exercise regime has caused permanent damage.

We've been told at least three to four hours every day,

and now I've just found out that maybe it's been a bit too much

and maybe we're responsible for the damage

so, it's not sitting too well with me at the moment.

But we'll see what happens.

I think rather than upsetting an owner saying,

"Oh, that's ridiculous, too much exercise," I think

it's quite handy to talk around the subject

and say how bones develop and to show these kind of things on X-ray.

Finally, David is able to deliver his verdict on Zeus.

The x-rays are good news and there's no obvious bone abnormality.

German shepherds are great guard dogs.

They're highly intelligent, but I don't think they're

the best for like, chasing Frisbees or chasing balls and things.

I think what I would say at this stage is just to rest him.

-All of it looks fine at this stage, all right?

-Great, lovely, thank you.

The owner's really keen to do the right thing by her dog

and I just feel if we rein in the exercise

and some of her expectation about what this dog should be doing, I

think we've probably got, you know, we'll get the right balance there.

Hello, babe, how're you doing? Hey.

But it's great to see a dog being channelled in that direction

rather than sitting at home or sitting in a kennel all day,

not receiving any attention.

We thought that he'd broke his leg or something like that,

but now we know that he's been x-rayed and got everything, and everything's absolutely brilliant.

So, I feel a bit guilty that we've over-walked him slightly,

but, yeah, apart from that, we're happy. Definitely.

Dealing with wildlife can take inspectors far and wide.

And not just up mountain and down dale.

Pembrokeshire, on the beautiful Welsh coast,

is a popular breeding area for Atlantic grey seals

and local inspector, Keith Hogben, is often called out to help

seals in difficulty.

From the middle of August, right up to sort of end of November,

we're constantly getting calls about seal pups,

either in distress or been abandoned by their mum, or being injured.

One such call has just come in.

It's a beautiful day, and when Keith arrives,

there are lots of holidaymakers enjoying the late summer sun.

Plenty of people out, isn't there?

Unfortunately we're an inquisitive bunch, and instead of leaving

something well alone, we will go up to something and look at it,

and even if you've got the dog on the lead, it's causing distress

to the seal pup because it's not normal for the dog to be there.

The seal was spotted a mile up the coast.

So, Keith hikes up the cliff path to find it.

After a 40 minute walk, Keith spots two large adult seals

and there's a baby seal nearby.

Oh, wow, look at that.

That's how they should be, you know? Fantastic, aren't they?

Thankfully, Keith thinks it's a false alarm.

When we found this one, it was in its normal surroundings.

The seal pup will stay up in the rocks

and the mum would be out at sea, feeding and hunting herself,

before going off to feed the pup, so its environment was fine.

And then, Keith gets further reassurance all is well.

A big bonus was seeing the pup feeding from mum itself,

you know, that was really good to see,

and again it shows that it's normal behaviour, everything was fine.

I think I probably sat on the rocks for 25 minutes just watching them.

You get those days where you knock on doors

and you see some horrendous things, and a lot of cruelty.

To be able to go and see something like that was... Yeah, I'm very lucky.

Thankfully, that seal pup was being looked after by its mum.

But recent turbulent weather has seen a massive

increase in injured and orphaned seals.

At the RSPCA Specialist Centre in Norfolk, manager Alison Charles

and her team, are struggling to cope with the influx.

This year has been absolutely crackers.

We've got 108 at the last count,

seals in the building, so quite busy.

Put the fish in the corner...

The seals need round-the-clock care while they're being treated,

and their strength built back up.

And it's a lengthy process.

It takes a long, long time to get them over whatever

they came in with and then get them fit for release, get them built up.

It's not a quick process at all.

But for all their hard work,

the team don't get much thanks from their petulant patients.

The seals are quite tricky, really.

Even when they're sick, they're actually quite strong.

We've got one at the minute that just... You step over the wall

and it wants to eat you.

Meet Queen-Size, the largest lassie on the block.

This super-sized grey might be all mouth now, but she arrived in a very

sorry state after getting caught up in discarded fishing tackle.

Queen-Size had a lot of netting embedded in her neck.

We had to wait for four days to actually get her fit enough

to sedate her, and then actually pull the netting out of her neck.

It was so deeply embedded, it was just awful.

She's recovering well, but her wounds still need regular cleaning.

It's a job only for the brave.

She's so strong.

She's massive, isn't she?

Because Queen-Size is quite a big girl,

we need quite a lot of us to handle her.

Good girl.

You don't sit on a seal that size

unless you've got force that you can actually trust to sit behind you.

Yeah, that looks quite good. Quite pleased with that.

She's a feisty girl, she certainly is, but she's brilliant, I love her.

It will be a while before Queen-Size is ready to be released

back into the wild.

But for these two seals, Nefertiti and Princess Fiona,

there's a faint whiff of freedom.

Their outdoor pool has been drained, so they can be weighed

and hopefully given the green light to go.

I'd like them to be 40 kilos because they're female grey seals

and that's the release weight that we're after.

They were 34 kilos last time we weighed them.

I'll have a little look.

When we went in and caught them up, they were really quite feisty,

and having a go at us.

That's not a bad thing.

Seals that want to bite you at this stage is fantastic,

it means we've done our work properly, and they're still wild.

That's great stuff.

SEAL BARKS

Oh, dear. 35, tops.

Right, she's not going anywhere.

She doesn't sound best pleased.

Will the scales tip in Nefertiti's favour?

Ah, that's more promising. That's a bit better.

40. You can guess who's been eating the fish in this pool.

It's good. That means she can go.

It's the end of a long journey for Nefertiti.

Found on a beach five months ago,

she's been slowly nursed back to health.

She's just one of 55 seals that were successfully

returned to the wild last year by Alison and her team.

Oh! Don't go yet.

She's keen. Wow.

She caught it on a nice, muddy day,

so she had a nice gentle slide into the river.

And that one moment when they splosh into the water,

and you just think, you know, "It's down to you now,

"you've got a second chance, off you go.

"Go make the most of it." You just think, "Yeah, job done."