Episode 6 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.

DOG BARKS

Every shift is a challenge.

Rhea, one, RSPCA, nil.

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

Oi, 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, it'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 COUGHS

-Sorry.

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

But even if you just helped one animal...

Hi, mate.

..It's worth it.

Today, the animal hospital getting all its ducks in a row.

Shih-Tzu Milo faces an uncertain future.

And a call to a German Shepherd leaves Vicki McDonald

struggling for control.

Just calm down.

For most inspectors, rescuing one animal in a day is reward enough.

It's not often they get a chance to rescue hundreds.

In North Wales, Inspector Keith Hogben

might be about to do just that.

Oil and ducks don't mix.

On site, Keith and his colleague Ellie West can immediately

see how bad the spill is.

OK, darlings. OK.

Hundreds of mallard ducks are covered in oil.

Oh, you can really smell it now.

And Keith starts to find disturbing clues as to what's happened.

Oh, look. Is this the oil?

Yeah. So it looks like somebody's just come and poured it.

Yeah. Shocking.

It's just disgusting, it really is.

'When I initially saw these ducks,'

and saw the state of 'em, I was, I was very emotional,

I think I probably had tears in my eyes.

It looks like Keith may be too late for some of the birds.

Their feathers have been so badly oiled

they've already died from the cold.

It's just, it's just disgusting and wrong that someone should do

this to these animals that can't defend themselves.

You can see they're trying to clean themselves desperately.

I just can't understand it. I really can't.

You have to get over that emotional side yourself, and once you're over

that, right, get your head sorted and you know what you've got to do.

There are still over 200 ducks here

and Keith's determined to save every one of them.

They're all going to have to come off as soon as possible, really.

But he's going to need help.

I think we're looking about 200-300 that we can see.

While he waits for the reinforcements,

Keith works out his tactics.

Ducks are notoriously hard to catch.

They can take off vertically. They don't play ball, so to speak.

Someone could just walk it in.

We felt the best thing was to try and create a fenced-off area

with some fencing material that was around the property.

And hopefully they'll just come down here, straight into here.

HE LAUGHS

It's not going to work like that is it?

But how many RSPCA officers does it take to round up 200 ducks?

Keith's banking on five. And the neighbour's grand-daughter.

Apparently, Serren's the expert duck-catcher,

so, are you going to give us a hand, Serren?

Yeah? Brilliant. Thank you.

There's not a definite plan, I suppose. We're going to try...

One or two of us will get behind the ducks

and hopefully the ducks will think "Hey, I don't want to go that way,"

and walk straight in, and Bob's your dad's brother. Apparently. But...

If it goes to plan, it'd be the first time ever.

With everyone in place...

OK, Serren?

..The corral begins.

All right. Don't want to spook 'em.

Keep going. Keep going.

Well done, Serren.

Very slowly, the team gently coax the first batch in.

Thank you, Serren.

Stage one complete, it looks like they've cracked it.

Mike, we'll just try and walk 'em down,

and hopefully they might go into the boxes.

All right, darlings.

But then, the birds have other ideas.

And so Keith has to take a different approach.

It looked a bit heavy-handed with the nets, I think,

at some points, but our main concern was to not let these ducks get away.

Better than hook-a-duck, isn't it?

At last, Keith and Ellie can

get their hands on the ducks to see what damage the oil has done.

God, some of these are really heavy, aren't they?

Yeah.

It's just so far down, to all of his...

Through all the downy feathers, the nice fluffy ones that keep him warm.

Poor little soul.

Some of the birds were still trying to preen themselves

so they were digesting the oil,

the oil will cause burns and sores inside, so internally,

it must be a horrendous pain for them.

It's just disgusting, it's terrible.

So we're just assessing every one before it goes on this journey.

Fingers crossed for 'em.

Keith is determined to save every duck he can.

Oh, that's all right.

Operation Mallard takes two days

but eventually the last of the ducks are rounded up.

The RSPCA wildlife centre at West Hatch is used to walk-in patients.

But not usually this many.

Their specialist team gives each bird the full spa treatment.

I was chatting to the local chief inspector about the resources

we've used. You know, I came up from West Wales.

There's all the resources in the North Wales group. I should

think it's probably cost, due to the one person or several individuals

spreading this oil, probably between £15,000 and £20,000.

It's heart-breaking for the animals to go through this,

but I'd like to think we've got better things to be doing,

you know, than dealing with someone's stupidity.

Just over a week after they arrived,

these birds are ready to be relocated to a private pond nearby.

And thankfully, they take to their new home like, well, ducks to water.

Staff at the RSPCA's national control centre deal with over

a million calls a year.

And have you tried luring her down with any food or anything?

What animal are you calling about, Shelley?

And it's their job to decide which calls need to be passed

to officers on the ground.

I'll pass that on to the officers now for you.

When you take a call, you can't really tell on that call

whether that person genuinely needs that help or not, we've got

five minutes to make a split choice decision.

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

Some of the calls are so strange, they could only be true.

I've had a horse in a bungalow before.

I thought to myself, "That was kind of weird."

I says, "Are you sure?", and she says, "Oh, I had to triple check,

"but, yeah, it's definitely in there."

Other calls are a little less based in reality.

It was one of my first calls, and this lady was telling me that

every time she left her house, this chicken got her down on the floor.

And I could just picture it in me head about this chicken,

over this lady. Being aggressive.

Right.

I've had a call to a bird of prey tangled in a tree,

and I've got there, and it'd be a child's kite.

And you think, well, how can someone mistake that?

A dying cat on the side of the road that's a pile of leaves.

The collapsed horse which is a cuddly toy.

Okey dokey, so what animal is your call in regards to today, then?

I mean, I've had, we've had numerous calls in regards to the fact

that people thought there was a swan injured,

and it turns out to be an Iceland carrier bag or something like that.

So obviously that's quite ludicrous. To be fair.

But for every funny call, there are hundreds of serious complaints.

In Bolton, inspector Vicki McDonald has just arrived at her latest job.

It's a report about a number of dogs being kept in a back yard

with no shelter.

There was no answer at the door, and I could see that

I could get round to the back, so I went round and was able to establish

which house it related to and it was quite obvious when you got near.

Hello!

-DOG BARKS

-I know, I see ya!

What I don't want to do is have my face bitten off.

Whoop! Hello!

The wall was quite high at the very back

but the neighbouring yard was open,

and they let me have a look over, which gave me a much better

and much clearer view.

Hello! I see ya!

There's three adults and a puppy.

You've got a ramshackle shelter, and the conditions...

There's flies everywhere. It's just, it's just inadequate.

I know, I see you!

The conditions aren't good.

And the dogs seem keen and capable of making a leap for freedom.

Oh, hello.

'They were very keen to kind of interact, they were jumping up.'

It would have been cold, it would have been uncomfortable,

and it would have been hazardous.

What I'm going to do is put a note through his door,

with my observations from today.

And what we'll need to do is come back and have quite a serious

discussion with him about the way he's keeping his animals.

A week later, and in a crisp, clean uniform,

Vicki makes a return visit to see if anything has changed.

I was going there with the hope that he'd followed the advice,

that he would have improved the conditions that the dogs were living in. I mean, you hope.

Hello!

He's cleaned up a bit.

The problem I have is that it's ramshackle and squalid.

What're you nibbling for?

I know, I know, it's rubbish in there, isn't it?

Things are a bit better, but the dogs still seem intent on escape.

Careful! There's some screws on top of there.

Safety-wise, it's not ideal, I mean, that, it worries me that the dog,

that the dog can even get there.

The dogs are jumping up at the back wall,

but I certainly couldn't anticipate what happened next.

Oi! Oh, my lord! Come here!

Come here! Come here, you eejit.

The dog's heading straight for the main road.

It's Vicki's worst nightmare.

Come here! Oh, my lord.

It became quite a struggle to actually get her under control.

Come here, come here.

And she made her bid for freedom. She wanted freedom.

German Shepherds are a big strong breed.

All right, all right. Just calm down.

It takes all Vicki's strength to restrain her.

'You've just got to act instinctively,'

and you've got to try and control it, and I thought, "Once I'd got hold of you

"I'm not letting go of you, I'm not going to run the risk of you getting away."

That is my point about it not being sa... All right, all right.

Calm down. You're not going to go anywhere.

There we go.

'She put up a bit of a fight.'

She's almost as big as me!

That is my point as to being secure.

Unsuitable back yard.

That was very nice, thank you(!)

I was just getting dirtier and dirtier by the minute.

With the owner absent,

Vicki has no way of getting the dog back in the yard.

But getting it in the van is no easy job either.

I was trying to keep hold of her,

I was trying to get the door open on the van.

She didn't want to go in the van,

so I'm having to lift her into the van while holding a door open,

it was just the most ridiculous farce trying to get her in.

Go on. OK. Right.

I generally win!

Ten minutes later, the dog's owner appears.

Hiya. Can we just get into the yard now?

Vicki's clean uniform already needs a wash,

but she wants to explain her concerns.

You need to make some priority time here, to get this sorted.

It's not adequate.

They've got nothing to lie on, but dirty, smelly ground,

that's it, that's all they've got.

-It's not appropriate.

-Yeah, I know, I appreciate it.

So you've got some work on this weekend, all right?

I need you to do this by the end of the weekend.

Hey!

All right, everybody. I hear you.

I hear you.

'I left absolutely caked.'

The smell of me was offending me, let alone anybody else!

I smell so bad!

But in the end the job did bring the sweet smell of success for Vicki.

I went back and every possible thing I'd asked him to do, he'd done.

And that was brilliant. And unusual for it to happen that quickly.

When you can see that your visit on that particular day has made

a difference to the animal's life and to the life of the owner,

then, yeah, I think you've done your job.

Just a few miles away, on the other side of the city,

it's another busy morning for the RSPCA animal hospital.

David Yates and his team treat over 30,000 pets every year...

Hiya.

..Providing a lifeline for owners struggling to pay regular vet bills.

This is Milo...

-Milo Seddon?

-Yep.

..A Shih-Tzu with a rather desperate problem.

-Hiya.

-Hi, how can I help you?

He came yesterday, he had some problems with his bladder,

he's struggling to wee.

He's had previous problems in the past with urinary stones.

So I was given some medicine and told to come back today,

but he's still not weeing so...

And has he been straining and passing blood, urine, or nothing?

-He's not been passing anything, since yesterday.

-OK.

Urate, or bladder stones, can be serious in dogs,

because they prevent the animal from urinating.

It's a particular problem for small, male dogs.

Is he sometimes a bit grumpy?

He can be, yeah, when he's not getting his own way.

From what the owner is saying, he's normally a bit more plucky,

a bit more spirited, and perhaps

a bit more difficult to examine.

He was subdued.

Quite often it's not the animals that are aggressive that we worry about,

it's when they're depressed

that we'd be more concerned that things are deteriorating.

And just keep reassuring him, and stroking him.

Oh, yeah, his bladder's huge. Yeah.

It was fairly easy to feel a large painful, swollen bladder.

That is a veterinary emergency.

His bladder's very big, so he's going to need sedating, this fella,

and try and pass a catheter, and get an idea of what's going on.

The worst scenario there would be for the bladder to burst,

so I need to try and relive the bladder,

otherwise if his bladder ruptures, that could be life-threatening.

Owner Ian is clearly worried for his little dog.

Aw, well done. Nice one.

Great, it'll take about 15 minutes and he'll go dozy.

'When you're a vet, I think you need to realise,'

that even though you've done thousands of a particular procedure,

this is maybe the first and only time an owner sees something like that.

Their animal's been sedated, so to the owner it looks like a dead

or a dying animal, so sedation is a striking thing for an owner to see.

With Milo out for the count...

You can see the size of his bladder.

..David can insert the catheter.

OK.

Now that feels quite gritty, that.

But urine is coming through no problem. Watch your face.

Just watch you're not in the line of fire there, mate.

Milo is clearly fit to burst, and would have been in a lot of pain.

How many have we done, is that eight?

We're not far off 200mls there.

OK. That's empty now.

With the bladder emptied, David can examine Milo

to see if there are any more stones present.

His urethra's very thickened,

and it feels like there are little stones in there as well.

I think what we're probably best doing is...

..getting him in for surgery probably, tomorrow, for that.

Milo has already had this operation once before.

And it's unlikely to cure the problem for good.

But the only other option is to put him to sleep.

I'm not going to promise that we're going to cure him or anything.

I think he's going to have problems, and when you've done surgery once,

that's your best chance of fixing.

Repeat surgery's just going to mean more scar tissue

and potentially more problems.

It's a tough decision, but Ian wants to give Milo every chance.

You know, he's not exactly old,

I just want to do anything I can really, just to keep him going.

Still got a lot of life in him, regardless of his illness,

so, whatever it takes.

I was quite taken aback at how emotional the owner became

when I gave him this news. He was visibly shaken

and upset at the prospect of potentially losing his dog.

Now that's... It sounds like a horrible thing,

but I was actually pleased that he was that attached to his pet,

it makes it much easier for me to be aware that the owner's going

to be committed and follow any kind of treatment I recommend.

Milo's future now depends on the operation.

A few weeks later,

Ian's beloved pet is back home recovering from the surgery.

Give me teddy.

I was really pleased with how this case went.

It seemed like an owner strongly committed to his pet,

that decided to do all that he

and the family could do to try to get Milo back to health.

Milo. Are you ready? Come on then.

Come on then.

Milo is on a special diet to try and prevent stones forming again.

There's a good boy.

But for now, he's got a new lease of life.

He's made me happy again, he's made everybody in my family happy again,

he's running round like a puppy.

Give me that teddy.

HE LAUGHS

You big softy.

I know that in two years' time, it may come again,

so to me it's about spending as much time as I can with Milo.

At the end of it all, he's come out and he's fighting-fit,

and he's absolutely loving his life again.

In Liverpool, Claire Fisher is on her way to a call about a cat

that's been locked in, when its owner got locked up.

Unfortunately, we have a lot of people that go into prison

and leave their animals. Which really winds me up.

But before Claire can stage a breakout for the cat,

she needs to show it's been left to fend for itself.

What we do when we're trying to prove if someone's attending

to an animal, is we seal it up so we either put bits of card

in the door frame, or people will put sellotape over doorframes.

Seals are intact. Card's there.

Yeah, there's another one here.

The owner's been locked up for over a week,

and so the cat could be in a bad way.

Puss, puss, puss, puss, puss!

Nothing.

You do start getting really concerned because you think,

well, we had no sighting of it, we couldn't hear this cat at all,

it was all a bit odd.

Come on, puss, puss, puss, puss.

A lot of my job involves being a nosy bod.

Whether that's peering through windows,

peering through letter boxes, we do it a lot.

Claire can't see the cat, but she does spot something.

There is indeed a key in the door.

Oh. It does open.

Claire could walk right in. But she knows she can't.

That to me...is an open door.

Oh, it was like it was, it was winding me up.

This key's looking at me going, "You could enter if you want to.

"But you won't be doing it legally."

Potentially it's there, it's good to go, you know.

Could just go in and check!

So Claire now has to call the police to allow her inside.

If you had an officer that may be handy...

It's a gamble, for a cat Claire can't even see.

But she wants to be sure it's OK.

There was just something about this one.

I just felt like if I'd have walked away...

I wouldn't have done the job properly.

The boys in blue have turned up.

I'm really sorry if there's no cat.

-No, it's OK.

-Hey-ho, it's one of them.

At last we've not bust the door in.

And it's soon clear Claire's gut instinct was right.

Oh you've got... Have you got the cat? Oh, baby!

You've been on your own for seven days!

I was relieved to at least go in and find this little cat

huddled in the wardrobe.

Hi, mate. You look like you're going to jump on me.

I was so happy that I stuck at it because if I hadn't stuck at it,

how long would that cat have been there for?

But this tricky tomcat isn't sure he wants to be rescued.

It sort of had that look about it that was either,

"I'm so scared I might run round the property

"and you're never going to catch me," or, "I might bite you,"

or, "I might attack you."

All right, baby. It's OK, it's OK. Shush, shush, shush.

Go in the basket. All right, baby boy, settle down. Come on.

It's OK. Come on.

One of our baskets is called a crush cage,

which we normally use for sort of more wild cats.

You can lift the end off the basket.

And I sort of gently squashed the cat,

so, you know... I needed for it to realise, "You have to go in here."

Get your bum in, then. I think we're in.

Right. One cat.

Claire thinks the cat looks pretty healthy.

Come on, you. Shall we got to the vets?

Oh, you're big and heavy.

But he still needs to be checked over.

Vet Alan Humphries inspects the cat, and immediately spots a problem.

These ears. See that dark wax? Very suspicious of ear mites.

Let's have a look.

The poor little fella is clearly suffering.

Oh, OK, that's a classic.

Aw, bless him.

I'd like to give those ears a clean.

A special solution is used to flush the cat's ears out

and make him more comfortable.

Is he going to like this?

Aw, baby.

Oh, yes, I know.

Aw, good boy.

Bless him.

All right, baba, no, no, no.

I think I actually ended up with some of it on my face,

when the cat shook its head.

Is that on me, is it?

Always a great thing to add to your day,

cat ear gunk on your face(!)

And this delightful blockage could be the reason

Claire was being ignored at the flat.

The whole time we were outside the flat door,

and I'm calling through the letter box, thinking I'm talking to myself,

maybe it's entirely possible that he didn't hear me.

Hopefully now we've got the ball rolling with sorting his ears out.

He will be a lot more comfy. Won't you, mate?

A lot more comfy.

It might have been a long job to get here,

but Claire is satisfied with her day's work.

It's rewarding. It is rewarding, to leave the vets and think,

"Right, well there's a cat that's now had some treatment,

"it feels better about its ears, it's got human contact,

"it's got food, water, a litter tray and a clean bed. Job done."

Hey. Ah!