Episode 8 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...

He's got no shelter, there's no food...

They just leave it there all the time.

..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.

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, 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.

Sorry.

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

But even if you've just helped one animal...

Hi, mate.

..it's worth it.

Today, the rescued tropical fish living life in the slow lane.

I'm building up quite a queue of traffic behind me,

but I can't upset these fish, really.

A caring dog owner gives his beloved pet a second chance.

Take care now, boy, right?

And Molly the mare

gives inspector Chris Shaw the run around.

I'm feeling pretty useless at the moment.

Every day, each inspector follows up around ten different calls

made to the RSPCA.

I'll send this through to an officer now for you.

Some jobs will turn out exactly as the caller describes.

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

But often, there's a surprise in store.

In Peterborough, Justin Stubbs arrives at the house

looking for abandoned birds.

But he's in for a shock.

The birds have gone. In their entirety.

With the aviary deserted, Justin's about to leave.

But he makes a final check around the property...

Wow.

..And there's a surprising discovery.

It was slightly odd, insomuch as I then turned around

and looked in the window of the house, only to see a fish tank.

Containing a good quantity of fish.

Haven't a clue what they are, don't really know my fish well.

They look like one of the pirate ones, out of Finding Nemo.

In a nice, tropical fish tank,

switched on, everything looks to be OK with it.

Obviously still got to get them out because nobody's attending to them.

It might seem almost laughable to some people,

but the law says that every vertebrate is a protected animal.

Fish are vertebrates, ie - they've got a spine,

so they've got the same protection as whales,

dogs, cats, cows, horses,

and they've still got the same right to be protected from various things.

But rescuing the fish isn't going to be simple.

'At this point, I need to have a vet certify that

'that animal can be removed for its welfare.'

Thank you for coming out, much appreciated.

'Then we have to call the police to gain entry to the property.'

Morning, Chris. How you doing?

And also the housing association, who essentially,

they own that house.

Not forgetting a fourth member of the team,

whose task is to gain access to the house.

None of us are going to fit through there, let's face it.

To have to call out the police and the vets and the housing people,

and the housing people call out the locksmiths,

I've never had to do that before.

So it was a lot of people for...fish.

Once inside, vet Cees Bennett quickly agrees

the fish need to be removed.

If they don't get fed on a regular basis, they will suffer or die.

Which is why we're removing them. Because you can't say

if a fish is suffering or not, it's really hard.

In this case, let's remove them, for their welfare.

But the tank is simply too heavy to move.

-It's going to weigh a lot isn't it?

-It's going to weigh a lot.

The first bit was to take a lot of water out of that tank.

It weighed a tonne.

So we had to get rid of at least half of that water before we'd

even thought about lifting it all up.

But their options for removing the water are somewhat limited.

I don't go around with buckets in the van, and the only thing

in the house to empty it with is a pint glass and a mop bucket.

I don't want to stick the mop bucket in the water, it's got bleach in it,

so we're just going to have to empty a load of water from this

before we can...before we can move it.

So going to go nice and gently, don't want to upset the fish.

It's going to take a little while.

It's a time-consuming process.

All the varied job of an RSPCA inspector and a vet, eh?

THEY CHUCKLE

-Got it? Got your side?

-Yep.

Finally, the half-empty tank can be lifted out to Justin's van.

To my van, then.

It's the first time I've had to move tropical fish,

so, got to be a lot more gentle with them, they don't like being moved

and transported and having their environment messed around with.

Excellent. Thank you, gents.

The fish are in the van.

But any sudden jolt could lead to fish fatalities.

I've got to do it all really gently and slowly.

So it's a painfully slow journey to the local animal boarding centre.

I don't think I've ever driven so slowly in my life, it doesn't

help when you've got 16 speed bumps and about seven roundabouts.

So I'm building up quite a queue of traffic behind me, but I can't

upset these fish, really, they could die of the stress.

At the boarding centre, Justin's careful driving has paid off.

Oh, look, not a drop spilled.

So we've got angel fish, a shark, and other weird things.

As the fish are given time to recover from their ordeal...

We'll slowly put the correct water in, in the correct manner,

and get the fish all back up to speed as they should be, really.

..Justin is feeling optimistic.

Job's a good 'un.

I've personally dealt with everything from caterpillars

and crickets, to alligators and whales.

If it's domestic, we can re-home it.

And for the most part, we've probably got a list of people

somewhere who will want to take on that slightly different animal.

At the end of the day, all of those animals are going to

get the same treatment, the same protection, and the same right

to a good, happy, comfortable life.

Rescuing tropical fish may be unusual, but every year

the RSPCA takes around 700 horses into its care.

But catching and transporting often abandoned

and neglected equines is not a job for the faint-hearted.

In Derby, inspector and horse-lover Chris Shaw

responds to the latest call.

We're on our way to try and catch a horse that's been abandoned.

We've proved that the owner's not been coming back -

we left a notice on the gate, which has expired.

Now it's literally just a case of trying to catch this mare.

Personally, I've worked with horses in the past

and I've had horses of my own, so, I'm a bit experienced with

horses and I'm used to catching difficult horses.

But this particular horse may be too much for even Chris to handle.

He's already made one unsuccessful attempt.

So today he's returning with help -

Rachael Andrews from the World Horse Welfare charity.

It's tricky to know which way to go about trying to catch her

cos she's not really frightened of people,

she just doesn't want to be caught, so she knows when she sees

the head collar...to move away.

When I went in the other Sunday, the first few minutes,

she was all right with me.

As soon as she cottoned on that I was after her,

she watched me from a great distance.

The horse, Molly, is wary of Chris,

so Rachael tries to get close enough to attach a head collar.

But the female touch isn't working.

She is a very clever mare. She knows what we're trying to do.

I don't think she realises that if we do get her, she's going to

go to a nice, lovely home, rather than being just left on her own.

This mare was having none of it.

There was just no way you could catch her,

and it was proving to be really quite frustrating.

You can just see, though, the way she's standing there,

looking at you, but with her hooves like ready to just go all the time.

She had a twinkle in her eye, she was a clever girl,

she really knew what she was doing.

She was always one step ahead of us.

Oh, very nearly.

The next idea I had was to go along to a vets

and to get some kind of sedative, and try and feed her this sedative

to just try and slow her down enough so that we could actually catch her.

So I've got some bread, and we've got some sedation.

A plan is hatched.

-I'll back off, leave you...

-She's so wise to it, isn't she?

Good girl.

Molly is beginning to act more relaxed around Rachael.

And she finally has an opportunity to get

the sedative inside Molly's mouth.

-She got quite a bit there.

-It's in.

-Not the way we wanted.

-Yeah, I think that was the only way

we were going to do it, really.

It's now a waiting game.

Kind of looking for signs that she's starting to look a little bit

sedated. Her eyes will start to dilate a little bit,

she'll start looking a little bit sleepy, sometimes their ears

will sort of go slightly to the side, as if they're dozing.

But Molly's definitely not dozing.

Unfortunately, it didn't seem to work.

It was almost like she'd been given a can of Red Bull -

she was suddenly rearing, bucking, and galloping around the field.

Chris is getting desperate,

and is tempted to take a less cautious approach.

Well, I'm just thinking, shall we just try and get her

in a corner now, but then, are we going to end up getting killed?

It's all just getting quite frustrating now, isn't it?

I mean, you were so close, but yet so far.

Reluctantly, Chris has to call off the rescue for a second time.

Oh, I... You know, you almost want to just bang your head

against a wall because you just feel so done-in about it.

It really does affect you.

I went home that day... You know, it wasn't a very good day

at work at all, but you do get days like that unfortunately.

Three days later,

Chris returns to the field with more reinforcements, and a new plan.

I actually called my chief, who's trained with a tranquiliser rifle.

And called the vet to come and help us with this one.

Unfortunately, we've had to go for the last option,

and we're going to dart her, and then hopefully

we can then get her loaded and get her off to her new home.

Whenever you're using a firearm, there's lots of risks involved,

so we've got to do everything in a very controlled manner.

First, Chief Inspector Simon Parker

and vet Christine Jamieson need to assess the situation.

-I've got a five mil dart or a ten mil dart.

-OK.

She's big.

-She's 14 hands, I reckon.

-Let me have a... Is she in there? Yeah?

The vet wants to use as little tranquiliser as possible,

so the team try small amounts at a time.

Totally confident I can get a dart into her.

How she reacts afterwards is not an exact science.

Here she comes. Let her come up.

Molly moves within range.

Marksman Simon seizes his chance.

12.20.

Note the time and then we'll just give her a few minutes.

Brilliant, you know, she's got the dart,

she's going to start getting a bit slower,

we're going to be able to catch her, that's when I really thought,

this is all going to be sorted soon.

Unfortunately, that wasn't the case.

She's not had enough.

And now we're going to unfortunately have to give her a bit of a top-up,

so she needs some more sedation.

Another tranquiliser dart is fired.

We're trying to use, if you like, mild sedatives to allow us

to work with her, so she can still walk,

rather than be on the floor, fully sedated, because if we got that

situation, obviously, we can't get her out of the field.

But this stubborn mare is still having none of it.

So they decide to increase the dose.

Third time lucky.

That's gone in.

She was really, really fighting that sedation.

At that stage, I was really starting to get quite

concerned about what we were going to do here.

This is not going to plan at all, at the moment.

She is obviously a fighter.

I'm feeling, yeah, pretty useless at the moment.

But we're trying, we're doing everything we can.

The decision was finally made to try one last dart.

And then, finally, she started showing some signs of sedation

and slowing down a little bit.

And I just ran up, get the head collar on her.

We knew we'd got her then.

Good girl, out of the field at last, eh?

And then it was just a case of walking back up to the lorry,

getting her loaded...

Wow, chuffed to bits now,

we've finally got her on the horsebox, so, brilliant stuff.

I felt a little bit overwhelmed at that stage,

cos it was just such a good feeling to get her out of there,

and get her to a better life, really.

After weeks alone with no shelter, Molly now has a new home

and new friends.

I love days like this, you know, when we get the result that we

want, we get to take the animal and put it somewhere safe, you know.

That's why I came into this work, so, a very, very happy inspector.

Hopefully, going to be a very happy horse.

The RSPCA cover every bird, mammal, or fish in need of their help.

But while all inspectors are animal-lovers,

they can't know everything about every species.

Today, Kerry Gabriel has had a call about some owls,

but she needs to cram up.

Just having a quick look through the Wildlife And Countryside Act

just to see if there are any owls on any schedules of the legislation.

Because there are certain things you need to do if there are.

I don't think there are any, but I just want to double-check,

because as I say, I haven't really dealt with many owl jobs.

One of the good things about this job is, you don't

know what you're going to be doing from one day to the next.

This is the first time I've ever had a call about owls being

kept by somebody. So it was definitely quite unusual.

I'm used to dog and cat jobs, really.

So, yeah, I was quite interested and quite excited, really, to see

what I'd find.

The call is to a suburban street, where

a number of owls are supposedly being kept in unsuitable conditions.

Hello, how are you? I'm Kerry from the RSPCA.

We've had a call about some owls being kept at this address.

Someone was concerned that the owls are being kept in untidy

conditions, sort of, you know, a bit messy and, unclean,

are you happy for us to come in and have a look?

See what you've got? That's great, thank you.

From the outside, the house just looks normal, and then you go

into it and out the back, and you're suddenly met by all these aviaries.

So I was quite surprised that they were keeping that many in such

a small garden.

Owner Gilbert is not at home, but his partner, Joyce, is happy to

show Kerry the 13 different owls and their living conditions.

They don't need to fly, only for their food.

Food, exactly, yeah.

They don't need to fly for their food, because they're fed.

Captive birds like this I'd like to see as big

a space as possible for them, obviously.

My initial concern is that the aviaries were quite small,

because the species of owls that they were keeping,

a lot of them were quite big in size,

so I just wanted to make sure that they weren't overcrowded.

What do you do to keep the place clean?

What's the daily routine?

He cleans them out... He won't clean them out every day, obviously,

about once a week he'll scrape them all out.

When they perch, and if you have a wall near a perch,

that's where, unfortunately a lot of faeces collects, isn't it?

Some of the faeces certainly is collecting over there in that corner.

I'd certainly like to see that cleaner.

And I would like to see it being done on a daily basis.

So you could see droppings, for example, on the perches

and on the walls of the enclosures,

which I felt had been there for some time.

My concern was that they hadn't been cleaning up regularly enough, and

then of course, that can lead to all sorts of problems for the animals.

And with the life expectancy of captive owls being around 40 years,

Kerry's also concerned about their long-term future.

Yeah, crikey.

What's the future plan, then, for these guys?

I mean, who's going to be able to take them on?

The owner was actually quite elderly.

And my concern was, because a lot of these birds were really young,

they could live way beyond him.

And what was his future plan for these birds.

Kerry also spots a barn owl, tethered indoors,

so she decides she'll need to come back

to speak to Joyce's partner, Gilbert, about all the issues.

A week later, and Kerry returns.

She hopes that the owner has got the message about the owls.

Hello. Are you Gilbert? Hello! I'm Kerry, nice to meet you.

I just want to have a look, see your aviaries.

I think I can see already they're much cleaner.

Shall we go have a look?

Kerry can immediately see some improvements.

Oh, this is much better.

You've given this a bit of a scrub down, haven't you,

on the side there.

And the perch is looking better already.

It's not completely clear, but it's a lot better than it was.

There were still some things I was concerned about.

And that was the fact that he had a couple of owls there that

were tethered up. And he had told me that the

barn owl in the conservatory was tethered for most of the time.

That's a major concern.

What's your plans for them? Because obviously,

it's not ideal to have owls tethered.

I'd rather she was just loose in the aviary like these guys are.

Yeah. What I've got is a big oak frame one that can go in there,

longer, a lot longer.

So this aviary's going to come down, and then you're going to put

in a longer one?

How quickly do you think you can get something sorted to get them moved?

-In the spring...

-In the spring.

Even though Gilbert's building another aviary

for the tethered birds,

Kerry is still worried about current arrangements for the barn owl.

It's basically an offence to keep any bird in something that is

too small and doesn't allow them to stretch their wings.

It was sort of put in a box at night, almost like a pet carrier.

And it certainly wasn't big enough to house an owl for long periods

of time, and it certainly shouldn't have been kept in their overnight.

You have to stop putting them in anything too small.

That needs to happen now.

With Gilbert already making improvements and taking her advice

on-board, Kerry is happy that the owls' lives will soon be enhanced.

He did say that he was going to make some improvements to the

aviaries in the springtime.

Even though I was happy with what I'd seen that day,

I also in the back of my mind think, well, I'd quite like to go back

and just see what else he's done in the spring.

All right, take care. Bye!

So Kerry will be visiting the house again to check on the owls.

Birds like this, they are very specialist,

and people who're keeping them, shouldn't do so lightly.

And it's really important that you meet the needs of these animals

for a lifetime.

When people are struggling to make ends meet,

feeding their pets can become an unwelcome expense.

And sadly, checking on dogs that are underweight has become

an everyday job for inspectors.

We've just received a call about a bull-mastiff-type dog

that's very thin.

So we're not a million miles away,

we're just going to pop down and have a look.

We get that call five, six, seven times a week -

a dog in poor conditions.

That's probably our bread-and-butter type of call.

But however common,

experienced officers always approach with an open mind.

It took quite a while to answer the door, it was an upstairs flat.

You OK?

Hello, fella, from the RSPCA.

-All right?

-How's it going, I've had a call about the dog.

Do you need this Zimmer upstairs, sir?

-No, I've got one upstairs.

-Are you sure?

-Yeah.

-OK.

He'd recently had some type of operation,

hospitalisation, which he was recovering from.

What's been going on then, mate?

Oh, God.

But while the owner's in a bad way, his dog JJ looks in perfect health.

-OK, what's his name?

-JJ.

JJ. You're lovely, aren't you? Are you going to say hello?

He's a beauty, he is.

Ah, see, I've had a call saying he's in terrible condition, he's really

thin, and he's certainly not thin or in poor condition, is he, sir?

Whether Nigel is well enough to cope with such a strong dog

does worry Keith.

OK, I've also had a call from the police about him,

have you contacted the police at all?

Right, yeah.

OK.

Being an RSPCA inspector is a people job.

And I immediately had concerns for the gentleman's welfare,

and how he was coping.

And he clearly loved this dog.

The gentleman seemed to just be able to look after himself,

let alone this big dog.

My concern is, if he knocks you over,

you're going to end up back in hospital and...

Yeah, and we can't have that, can we?

And with dangerously steep stairs leading to the front door,

Keith thinks the situation isn't suitable for either Nigel or JJ.

Would you like him to be re-homed?

Yeah? OK, I'll tell you what...

Yeah, that's all right, sir.

No worries, I can help you out, it's no problem.

All right, JJ. Leave him alone. You're lovely, aren't you?

Look at that head on you.

Keith steps outside to fetch the relevant paperwork.

Cheers, sir, won't be a minute.

But the original call has left him frustrated.

The allegation was that the dog was in thin condition with its hips

and spin clearly visible, well, you know, that clearly is not the case.

It does annoy me sometimes when people seem to report

animals in poor condition when clearly they're not.

The call had gone from, perhaps looking into animal neglect to

helping the gentleman out to improve his life and improve the dog's life.

-You all right, Nigel?

-Yeah.

Can I perch on here? Is that all right? Or here?

-Is that all right?

-Anywhere.

-I'll just move your lunch, is it?

Hello, you.

Nigel, if you want, I could take JJ with me today.

And I can find him a home through the Swansea Animal Centre.

He was very emotional, very upset.

I think, I remember I checked with him

about four or five times that this is what he wanted to do.

If you want to do that, and you're sure about that.

OK.

Obviously, I made it perfectly clear, once he signed the dog over,

he couldn't have the dog back, and he was OK with that.

It's the best for him.

OK. And are you going to be all right without him?

-Oh, yeah.

-Are you sure?

-Yeah.

-OK.

It can be quite difficult to deal with someone's emotions. But

in this case, I just felt for the gentleman. He clearly loved his dog

and he wanted the best thing for the dog, and that's what happened.

You've done the right thing, mate.

-CRYING:

-Definitely.

-Yeah.

I know you're upset and he's been your pal, hasn't he?

But I give you my word, we'll find him a nice home.

Thank you.

Yeah. And he's a lovely dog.

He really is a credit to you, sir.

After completing the transfer of ownership...

You just concentrate on getting that leg better, all right?

Right, I'm Keith, that's my office number. OK, sir?

Thank you very much.

It's time for Nigel to say goodbye to JJ.

-Take care now, boy, right? Right?

-Are you all right?

-Yeah.

-OK.

Ta-ra, boy.

Take care now.

-Thank you very, very much.

-You're more than welcome.

Aw, good boy!

Quite often you don't...you don't get that type of job.

And within, I think, the space of 40 minutes,

we'd made a positive impact, not only to the dog

but to the owner as well, his life improved straightaway.

Good lad. Yes, you are.

All right, see you in a minute, son. Good boy.

The gentleman just wanted to help his dog, and by us

removing the dog, helps him out, and it put a big smile on my face.

Keith gets JJ settled at the Swansea Animal Shelter.

He's really nice, he's really friendly.

He was pretty good on the lead when I took him out of the property

but he's pulling a little bit, but... You be good now, yeah?

I'll take you for a walk, eh?

Just a few weeks later, JJ was found a new home,

and former owner Nigel was delighted.

That shows how caring he was, he's still ringing up to check

that the dog's OK. And I spoke to him last week and just assured

him that JJ's gone to a really nice home and that he's doing well.