Episode 3 Animal 24:7

Britain's animals are under threat.

All too often our wildlife and domestic pets

are the victims of cruelty, persecution and neglect.

Fighting to save them is a dedicated band of people

trying to protect and care for them right around the clock.

This is Animal 24:7.

Today, on Animal 24:7, the roadside rescue to save an injured deer.

Obviously it is touch and go with any casualties that comes through the door.

It might be something that we can repair. I can't say at this stage.

The super-sized dog in danger of dying from a junk-food diet.

Basically, someone has loved her

but, unfortunately, is killing her with love, if you like.

We think she's just been fed purely on human food.

And the race to rescue pets in peril.

It's gobsmacking that I'm here again today.

It's down now to the RSPCA to clear up the mess.

Many wildlife casualties are the result of instants where animals come into close contact

with us humans and as the volume of traffic on our roads increases,

so does the number of accidents involving wild creatures.

That is when animal rescue teams

are called to intervene and save lives.

At Tiggywinkles Wildlife Hospital in Buckinghamshire,

staff are on standby round-the-clock for animal emergencies.

The centre is one of the busiest hospitals in Britain

and deals with around 10,000 cases every year.

Today, founder Les Stocker

and his colleagues, Abbie Bruce and Jo Mellowish,

are responding to an urgent call from a motorist.

We've just got a call from a lady driver.

She said she saw a Muntjac deer, which is a very tiny deer -

which you get quite a lot of around here now - lying by the side of the road.

She said it was moving but she couldn't stop to sort of confirm anything.

So, we're going to have a look and, hopefully, it is still there and still alive

and we can do something to save it.

I reckon the deer could be anywhere from now on, so we'll have a good look.

The road is extremely busy in both directions, but suddenly they spot the deer.

-There.

-OK.

I can't stop there. It's a little Muntjac female and she's got her head up so she's definitely alive.

What she's doing sitting there, I don't know.

So we'll try to get back and get her without getting run over and without her running in the road.

On a busy road like this, there's a real risk of panicking the deer and causing an accident.

We'll walk along this side of the road till we can get opposite her. Let's go.

We can see her. She can't run so her back legs are out of action.

The deer struggles to get away

but her legs won't work, and she collapses into the undergrowth.

Spread out and we'll cross the road. Just watch the traffic. Hang on.

OK. Let's go.

Just put the net over her.

Well caught.

Fearing it may be harmed, the deer sounds an alert.

They always scream when you get hold of them.

DEER SCREAMS

Les can see the deer is clearly injured,

but his experience tells him her screaming is a sign of stress.

Got her.

DEER SCREAMS

-OK. Are you happy?

-I've got her.

I think!

Can you cover her up again? All right, all right.

DEER SCREAMS IN PANIC What a fuss!

-Shall we bring the box here?

-No, I can manage it. Go this side, though. There's a bit more of a path.

The priority now is to get the deer back to Tiggywinkles

to assess her injuries.

OK. Game?

Come on then. Put her in a box.

That's it. Put a mask on.

She's making a lot of noise.

DEER SCREAMS

Tiggywinkles gets so many Muntjac casualties,

they've designed a special box in which to transport them.

Although Les has only been able to make an initial assessment, he fears she could be badly injured.

She was a noisy girl, wasn't she?

She's obviously been hit by a car and bounced on the back.

Her back is damaged where it's been on the road.

But what is actually wrong with her we don't know.

She couldn't run away from us so her back legs are not working properly.

She could either have just severe bruising on the back

or damage to the pelvis or the femur

or it could be that she has broken her back, which we can't do anything about.

So, we've got to get her back,

get her on a drip to counter the shock she's in

and then get some X-rays done and then we'll take it from there.

The first job is to calm the Muntjac down as it's clearly very stressed.

Right. She's in.

DEER SCREAMS

She doesn't know what's happening to her. She thinks we are predators. She's scared stiff.

She doesn't know we're trying to help her.

The deer has a nasty wound where it has hit the road

but it is her internal injuries that are worrying Jo.

It feels like she has a fractured femur,

which is the thigh bone at the top of the leg.

Her pelvis is asymmetrical so this point here

is at a much lower point on this side.

It means it is broken so she has a fractured pelvis as well.

But we won't be able to X-ray her until tomorrow because it involves a general anaesthetic.

That's extremely risky for her because of the shock from the accident and from being caught.

I'll just do some basic cleaning and treating of the wounds.

We'll deal with the fractures tomorrow.

The deer is given painkillers and drugs for shock

and the puncture wound is cleaned up.

With her eyes covered and a drip in, she has quietened down.

Obviously, it's touch and go with any casualty that comes in.

They've been through a huge accident

and they're in captivity so stress levels are enormous.

Dealing with the shock for now is a very big deal and, obviously, she has severe injuries.

We'll do our best. We'll do a full assessment tomorrow to see how bad her fractures are.

See how it goes from there. It might be something we can repair. I can't say at this stage.

The next 24 hours for this deer will be critical

and the team can only hope she'll pull through.

Still to come - Tiggy's team hit the trail of a marauding moorhen

who's facing a parking clampdown.

-Shall we do a pincer movement?

-What's a pincer movement?

-It's a military term.

-OK.

And the danger facing pets without a drop to drink.

I can't remember ever going somewhere and having to provide water to virtually every animal.

The obesity crisis in our society often makes the headlines,

but many of our pets are becoming overweight too.

In fact, it is estimated that one in three dogs is now too fat,

and today I'm going to meet one that really has piled on the pounds.

Come on, Cassie. Good girl!

Cassie, the Border Collie, is one of Britain's fattest dogs.

Come on! Good girl!

When she arrived at the kennels recently, she'd tipped the scales at just under 60 kilograms.

Almost three times the size of an average collie.

Cassie! Good girl!

Helen Colbourne and The Dogs Team Trust are doing all they can to help her.

Aw!

Aw! That's unbelievable!

Poor thing!

It's weird. It's all so sad, isn't it?

Cassie doesn't look like your average Border Collie.

She's been shaved to help the treatment of her skin sores

caused partly by her need to lie down so much.

It is especially weird when you say she is a collie.

-I associate those with sheepdogs, agility, speed... And then look at her.

-Yeah.

How can anyone let this happen?

'Seven-year-old Cassie came to the Dogs Trust a month ago.

'She had been living with an elderly lady

'who obviously thought she was treating her like a queen.'

Basically, someone has loved her but, unfortunately, killing her with love, if you like.

-We think she has just been fed purely on human food.

-Really?

-You think she almost didn't know what dog food was?

-No.

She turns her nose up at it as if to say, "It doesn't look or smell what I'm used to."

Thanks to staff here, Cassie's menu has now completely changed

but it's been long overdue.

This is what Cassie should have been eating every day,

but in reality, her diet looks more like this.

She was getting the same as what her owners were having.

Cassie's crazy diet consisted of sausage rolls, ham sandwiches,

bangers and mash and even fish and chips.

It's no wonder that she was ending up as a super-sized dog.

This sort of doggie diet is giving vets the collywobbles.

More than 3.5 million dogs in the UK are thought to be too fat -

20% of them are said to be clinically obese.

'The hefty challenge for Helen

and the team here is to get Cassie into shape.'

You really can see each step is like extra weight, she's sort of doing...

Every step she is taking, she is almost falling on each leg,

-like it's really heavy each time.

-Yes.

When we first had her in, it did take four people to carry her from the car.

She couldn't walk even two or three steps.

'Today, Cassie is seeing the vet.'

-Shall we see if we can get her the last few strides?

-Yeah.

-Come on.

It's for your own good, I promise.

-Come on, sweetie.

-Good girl.

-Good girl, Cassie. Well done.

Hello, you must be Sian.

'And she seems pretty enthusiastic about her regular check-up

'with Sian Sharples.'

Put on a burst of speed there, I thought. Not bad.

'Only one place to start - the weigh-in.'

Good girl. I think she's probably getting used to this now. Good girl.

-Nearly 52 kilos.

-That's fantastic, Cassie. Good girl!

That's good, is it? I mean, that's less than she used to be.

She was 58 kilos when she came in.

That was about four or five weeks ago.

-So she's definitely going in the right direction.

-Extraordinary.

Good girl, Cassie.

Have you ever dealt with a dog of this size before?

I have never seen a dog this size before -

it was a complete shock when we saw her in the kennel.

-So, are we going to try and get her on the table?

-Good luck with that!

SHE LAUGHS

'Slightly concerned by Sian's chuckling,

'I'll take any help I can get.

'And with poor old Cassie's dignity well and truly in tatters,

'it's time for some Olympic weightlifting.'

OK, ready? One, two, three.

-Oh!

-Good girl, Cassie.

-That is a serious weight.

But the tail is still wagging.

You have to carry that around all the time, Cassie -

I just had to carry it for ten seconds.

'As I get my breath back, Sian starts her health check.'

So what are the issues around the back there?

Well, as you can see, there's so much skin,

that it's just folding in on itself.

It's getting very red, very sore and she can't clean herself,

obviously, because she can't get her head round.

-And how painful is that for her?

-It must be incredibly sore for her.

-Yeah. Oooh.

-Good girl.

-Look how tender it looks.

'But despite the obvious pain, Cassie doesn't complain even once.'

She's being ever so good, though, aren't you, Cassie?

Good girl.

As with humans, obesity in dogs increases the risk

of conditions like diabetes, arthritis and heart disease.'

Sounds absolutely fine, obviously that's one of the things

we were concerned about, with her carrying so much weight,

was putting strain on her heart, but her heart sounds fine.

The other things that we will be more concerned about is carrying so much weight on her joints.

Obviously, carrying this much weight on only four little legs,

that look even skinnier now that all the fur is cut off...

-They look so spindly under her balloon body.

-Exactly.

There's a lot of weight on those joints, but she's coping well with it at the moment.

What are the common mistakes that people make that can lead to a dog getting fat?

Um, it's when people are having their dinner at home

and the dog comes and sits there, looking very cute with those eyes.

And the owners think that they are giving them a treat

by giving them something to eat off the plate, or a human biscuit.

A one-off human biscuit isn't an issue,

but if it's happening on a daily basis,

the weight soon builds up and people think they are giving them...

Spoiling them, but they are actually causing a lot of damage.

And what's the plan? How can Cassie lose the weight?

Well, she's on a special prescription low-energy diet.

At the moment, she's too big to be getting any exercise.

Literally, she gets out of breath as soon as she takes a few strides.

As her weight does come down, we can build up her exercise.

It has to be a gradual thing.

It will be too much of a shock to her system

if we just did it suddenly, so it's a very gradual thing -

that's why she can't lose the weight too quickly

and we are looking at probably around 9 months to 12 months.

-Really?

-Until she's down to her ideal weight.

-Wow.

-When she can become slimmer of the year.

-Exactly!

'For Cassie, it's going to be a long, slow road to recovery

'and I will be finding out later in the programme how she's getting on.'

Trading in animals is big business.

As a nation, we spend around £520 million buying pets every year,

but sometimes, when animals are bred for profit,

they can become victims of cruelty and neglect.

That's when organisations like the RSPCA are called to step in.

In Liverpool, RSPCA Chief Inspector Simon Small is heading up

an operation where it's thought up to 100 small animals

are being kept in poor conditions.

Simon and his colleagues have been trying to improve the situation here

for 12 months, but it hasn't worked,

so now they are back with a warrant and the police.

The people involved have historically had a pet shop

and they've had their licence revoked,

so we believe they could be selling from their house

under the false pretence that they're running an animal charity.

So it'll be interesting to see what we find when we get in.

It's immediately clear that the house contains a lot of dogs,

and Inspector Leanne Hardy has discovered they're not housetrained.

Right, there's dog mess just in the entrance.

It's piles rather than slurry, so you can step between the piles

in the entrance hall and front room at the moment.

But as the team moves round the back,

it's the yard which becomes the focus of attention.

I can see a number of animals.

There is about eight dogs, mastiffs, Staffies, some rabbits in hutches.

That's all I can see.

Once in the yard, the team finds a total of 104 animals,

including more than 50 rabbits and 44 guinea pigs,

all living in cramped and dirty hutches.

They have bottles on their cages,

but there's no water in most of them.

Vet David Martin is astonished at just how poor the conditions are.

-None of them have got water and they're not just empty, they're dry.

-OK.

-It stinks in here.

-HE COUGHS

Again, none of these bottles have got any water in at all.

They don't look like they've had any for a while.

No water, no water, no water. Conditions are awful.

For small animals like this, access to water is vital.

They easily become dehydrated

which can affect their internal organs and lead to serious illness.

Almost all the rabbit hutches have no access to water,

some of them don't have access to appropriate feed,

virtually none of them have access to forage.

So in general terms, nothing is really having its needs met.

The team's priority is to give water

to what are clearly some very thirsty animals.

They are fighting over it, they are that bloomin' thirsty.

That's one third of a bottle gone in two, three rabbits, in ten minutes.

Hasn't stopped drinking yet.

Vet David Martin has 14 years of experience,

but even he is horrified by what they've found.

I can't remember going somewhere

where we've had to provide water to every animal on the premises.

The bedding materials of most of them are heavily soiled

and damp, some of them haven't got any bedding at all.

They've all got major issues.

There isn't a single hutch that hasn't got a problem

of some form or another.

The owner tells the RSPCA that he's only just got the animals

and was planning to have them examined by a vet.

But confronted by the evidence of what looks like neglect,

he agrees to sign all of them over to the RSPCA.

The dogs will be left at the house, but everything else will go.

With a total of 104 animals, that's a lot of boxes.

Seven baby rabbits - if you look, this is what they were contained in.

They've got water now, but when we found them,

they didn't have any water.

Overcrowded and just not clean enough, to be honest.

Leanne has been investigating the owners for many months

and is frustrated that all her attempts to sort this out

have had no effect.

I've been dealing with these people for over 12 months. I was giving warnings,

the warnings weren't heeded.

So we had no choice but to take them to court and it's gobsmacking

that I'm here again today and the same things are happening again.

Back at the RSPCA centre in Halewood,

vet David gets a closer look at some of the animals

which need urgent attention, including a rabbit with an injured ear.

Either had a fight with another rabbit or it's injured its ear in some way.

It's just been left to heal on its own without any input.

It's going to need surgery to remove the dead tip of the ear.

The rabbit's injuries may be small,

but a much bigger worry for David is the large number of guinea pigs

which are suffering from the serious skin condition, mange.

It's a mite that lives in the skin

and feeds on the surface of the skin.

It causes extreme itchiness and irritation,

which leads to the guinea pigs scratching extensively

and self-traumatising.

But a considerable number of guinea pigs

in the whole colony do have mange.

The mange mite burrows under the skin and causes severe pain.

Serious infestations can be life-threatening.

OK, so we have a brown and white, very thin, emaciated.

These are significantly worse.

They are in very poor body condition as well,

probably because of the severe amount of scratching they're doing -

this one's not as bad as some of them, but they've got severe patches of hair loss and scabbing.

There's no excuse for the condition that these animals are in.

Absolutely no excuse.

This is obviously indiscriminate breeding that's gone on,

by somebody who...

well, we've yet to find out the reasons for having so many animals.

But it's down now to the RSPCA to clear up the mess.

The animals that aren't well and there's not really a good prognosis of recovery,

yes, may be euthanased. It's something we will have to discuss with the vet.

After careful assessment,

sadly 15 guinea pigs and 2 rabbits had to be put to sleep.

But for some, the RSPCA raid

proved to be the beginning of a new and hopefully happier life.

Today, Dolly the giant French Lop rabbit

is settling into her new home with owner Samantha Cook.

Samantha works as a volunteer at the RSPCA's animal home in Hull,

where she first met Dolly.

And it wasn't long before the two developed a close bond.

She let me pick her up and she sat on my lap

and then she did a little run-around,

which means they're happy when they do that.

Then every time I went in to see her, it seemed like she remembered me.

Samantha's only had Dolly for the past three weeks,

but she's already warming to her strong personality.

She's very, very inquisitive. She's always sniffing at something.

When I'm sweeping up in the garage,

she's always picking up my brush and biting it and pushing it over

and trying to look in the bucket and stuff like that.

For Dolly, her new home is a far cry

from the cramped, squalid conditions she was previously kept in.

After all Dolly's recent trauma,

Samantha's priority is now to focus on the future.

I really hope she's not scared any more -

that's the main thing for me.

I want her to feel safe and be able to feel confident

in her surroundings and know that she's loved and cared for.

Now we're heading back to join the wildlife rescue team

at Tiggywinkles in Buckinghamshire.

Earlier, we saw how Les Stocker and his colleagues rescued

a Muntjac deer that had been badly injured in a traffic accident.

Now, they are on the road again, responding to another call to help.

Often the role of the wildlife rescue team at Tiggy's

is to deal with emergencies.

But sometimes, Les and his colleagues

get called to help animals in more unusual situations.

We just had a call from a lady in Aylesbury -

we think she manages the multi-storey car park -

that there's a bird trapped in the stairwell.

Now, she says it's got a red head,

but I can't think of any British bird with a red head.

Les has been rescuing animals from all sorts of locations

for nearly 30 years, but today's call to a multi-storey car park

is not the first place he would expect to find stranded wildlife.

-Where's the stairs?

-There.

This five-storey car park can hold more than 530 cars.

And with no idea of the bird's whereabouts,

Les and his colleague Sharon Jacobs are having to wing it.

-OK.

-Have you seen how high it goes?

Two floors gone, and Les still has no sight of the intrepid redhead.

But, as they finally weave their way up higher and higher,

Sharon's first to clamp eyes on the illegal parker on the fifth floor.

It's just here - it's a moorhen.

He HAS got a red head, hasn't he? What are you doing in here?

It's a mystery how this hen has flown the nest

and landed itself at the top of the block.

This is the fifth floor. He's probably come up in the lift.

But now Les has found him, his ticket's certainly up.

Right, Sharon - shall we do a pincer movement here?

-What's a pincer movement?

-It's a military term.

-OK.

But, before Les's battlefield tactics can swing into action,

Sharon's stolen a march.

Oh, well done, Sharon!

There we go.

When you pick up a moorhen, you point him like that,

because he invariably poos.

Nothing wrong with him, he's just trapped in the stairwell.

So there's a little pond on the corner -

we'll take him down there and release him.

OK, Sharon - ladies first.

With the bird safely bagged, Les knows just the spot

where this moorhen can park itself without any restrictions.

-Is that a moorhen pond, or is that a moorhen pond?

-It's lovely.

Lily pads, everything. What more can you want out of a pond?

OK, ready - one, two, three. Go!

It's flown across there into the bushes.

This is perfect moorhen habitat, so... There we are. Success.

Good job.

Hopefully, this hen will more inclined

to steer clear of car parks in the future.

Earlier, we saw how staff at Tiggywinkles

rescued a female Muntjac deer from the side of a busy road

after it had been hit by a car.

I'll put it in a box.

Les Stocker feared its injuries could be serious.

She could either have just severe bruising at the back,

or damage to the pelvis or the femur,

or it could be she's broken her back, which we can't do anything about.

Back at Tiggywinkles, the team manage to stabilise the deer

before taking X-rays to find out the extent of its injuries.

Settle down. Just settle down.

Now, vet Jo is assessing the results.

You can see that she has definitely got a fractured pelvis.

The pelvis should be completely symmetrical,

and on this side, there's a nice straight line going across the edge there.

On this side, you can see that it's interrupted

and this part of the pelvis has been shifted into the middle.

That'll take a long time to heal, at least two months.

She is quite lucky that one side is completely intact

and she can actually stand on this left leg, so she does have a chance at healing.

But the X-rays have revealed something else -

the little deer is pregnant, and that's a big problem.

We took a lateral X-ray,

and you can see that there is a foetus within her abdomen,

so she is pregnant. Here's the foetus - you can see a skeleton.

With her pelvis as it is, she can't give birth,

because the canal is narrowed, and with the stress that she's under with being brought into captivity,

she's in danger of aborting, basically, at any moment.

The vets have had to make a hard decision.

They will end the pregnancy that could jeopardise the mother's life.

We're planning to do a Caesarean to take out the foetus to reduce that risk,

or eliminate that risk. The foetus hasn't got a very good chance anyway

because it is so young and she has been through so much stress.

We have to prioritise the mother in this case.

After such a traumatic time,

it will take all the little Muntjac's stamina

to survive the operation to come.

Piling on a few pounds isn't just a problem for us humans -

our pets can get fat too.

Earlier, I caught up with Cassie, an obese colleague,

who at 58 kilos, was nearly three times her ideal weight.

Well, two months on, I'm back here at the Dogs Trust in Kenilworth

to see if all the staff's efforts to help her lose weight have paid off.

When Cassie arrived at the kennels,

she weighed an incredible 58 kilograms.

After her owner had put her on a diet of human food,

including burger and chips, Cassie came to look more like a seal than a dog.

So turning her life around was always set to be a titanic task.

Hello!

You look much more like a dog than last time I saw you!

She looks fantastic.

Compared to her bulging bulk of just two months ago,

it's plain to see all the work done

by animal carer Helen Colbourne has paid off.

-Come on then, Cassie.

-Good girl.

I wouldn't yet describe her as light on her feet,

but it's a huge improvement on last time, isn't it?

She's definitely doing much better than the last time you saw her.

Before, she probably would have stopped by now

and had a sit down, whereas she will keep walking

at a nice, slow, steady pace.

Cassie is still not exactly Speedy Gonzales,

but I can clearly see that her energy levels are up

and she has a real spring in her step.

Well, not only can she walk a little bit better now,

her whole character's starting to come out.

-Mm.

-She's quite cheeky.

-Oh, yeah?

She's started playing with toys

and she'll play with toys by herself now, which, before,

she'd just sit in her kennel and wouldn't have the energy to do that.

She's still on her regular exercise.

She goes for walks three times a day.

So she obviously is feeling better in herself, her mobility.

Obviously her lungs and her breathing and her heart

are obviously getting a bit stronger as well.

It shows how much, before, that the sheer bulk

was cramping everything else in her life, wasn't it?

Her temperament, her interest - not just physically,

it was affecting all parts of her life, wasn't it?

Yeah, yeah, definitely. She didn't have the energy

to even, sort of, get up to say hello, whereas now she will.

She now plays, which before she just couldn't even...

Although you could see in her face that she might want to,

she just couldn't even physically go to do that,

so that's a huge improvement.

Aside from being taken for three walks a day,

staff have tackled Cassie's biggest problem head-on.

So, while we let her have a little bit of a rest, tell me a bit more

about how you've brought her down to this weight and everything,

the key stages of the treatment.

Right. The main thing to start with is obviously her diet, and here...

-This here.

-Yeah. This is, um...

This is actually what she's being fed on a day,

this is her daily amount of food now. It's actually specially...

It's got the right nutrients

and the right calories in there to help her lose her weight.

For Cassie, her new diet has proved a big change.

Not only is she having to adjust to eating dog food,

the portions are just a fraction of what she used to gobble up.

A dog-food equivalent of Cassie's previous, calorie-filled diet

shows just why she had become one of Britain's fattest dogs.

It's quite a stark image, isn't it?

The quantity, the equivalent of what she was eating,

there in those three bowls versus what she's on now,

and what she'll probably be on pretty much into the future?

Yep, she'll have to stay on that now, at least till her weight's come down

to the right weight that we need her on and then we can look at

putting her on to a proper adult diet

-that a dog of her size and age should be on.

-Mm.

It's clear to see that she's already lost a lot of weight,

but the big question is just how much?

So, how often does she get weighed?

She's still being weighed once a week,

so this is her weekly weigh-in today.

-Right.

-So hopefully she'll just go straight on them.

She knows what to do. I'm not going to look at the dial yet,

I'll save the surprise. When she came in she was how much?

-58kg.

-58kg when she came in.

I think when I saw you, Cassie, you were at 52. There we go.

40.3 kilos.

She's lost close to 18 kilos since when she came in,

and you're saying that an average Collie should weigh 20,

so she's almost lost one whole Collie,

but she's got another whole Collie to go.

-It's extraordinary, isn't it?

-Yeah, that's about it, yep.

She's still got a whole dog to lose off her.

Cassie's clearly making great strides,

but it's only when you see her alongside

a normal-sized Border Collie

that it's clear that she still has a mountain to climb.

Who's that?

Hmm?

-That really gives you an idea of how far she has to go yet.

-Yes.

-So who's that then?

-This is Speedy.

-Yeah?

And he's a Border Collie, just like Cassie,

but he's actually what a Border Collie should look like.

So this is what Cassie's got to aim for.

Obviously, Cassie's hair's got to grow back

from where we've clipped it off to keep her cool,

so that'll grow back and she'll hopefully look similar to what Speedy's does,

and then she's got to lose the weight to get down to what he looks like.

The size of the job you've picked up here -

it's not supposed to be a pun - is quite apparent, though, isn't it?

Yeah, but when you actually compare her to a proper collie

you can see the scale, how much more she's got to lose.

'With Helen's help, it's going to take Cassie another six months

'to hit her target weight, but she's already a very different dog.'

To see her walking round here being a dog, sniffing,

enjoying herself, having a friend...

We weren't even sure she'd get to that point.

Obviously she's still got a long way to go,

but just seeing her like this, it's amazing.

It has been fantastic to witness Cassie's turnaround.

The hope now for staff is that she'll continue to shed the pounds

and she'll be transformed from a fat dog into a fit one.

Now we're back at Tiggywinkles Wildlife Hospital

in Buckinghamshire.

Their busiest times are the spring and summer months, where,

on average, they treat between 50 and 60 rescued animals every day.

So far, the team has been caring for a pregnant Muntjac deer

that was seriously hurt in a road accident,

and now they're having to deal with another emergency.

In the main treatment room just inside the hospital,

head veterinary nurse Clare Campbell is tending to a brand-new arrival.

This is a little cub that's come to us with, obviously,

a nasty wound on its shoulder, probably caught it on barbed wire

or something along those lines.

It's not terribly deep, but it's obviously oozing and quite sore.

The vet, Jo Mellowish, takes a swab from the wound

before she starts to clean it up.

Well, it's very important that it's kept clean, cos obviously,

otherwise bacteria will be able to proliferate in it

and if it does become an infected wound then it won't heal properly.

So what we do is we clip the hair around it,

try and remove any source of contamination from it,

then we'll give it a really thorough clean, a really good flush out

and he'll be kept on antibiotics until it's healed.

Normally, a fox cub would stay close to its mum

for the first seven months of its life.

It's still a mystery how this one has ended up on its own.

We're not sure what's happened to the rest of the family, or Mum.

He was just found out and about, and, obviously,

if he's got a wound like this, he'll go downhill quickly.

It can become infected, they become weaker,

so it might be that Mum's abandoned it, or it's just got separated.

Perhaps everybody else got through the fencing and this one didn't.

The injury seems just skin deep,

but there may be other damage that Jo can't see.

You can see as I'm flushing in the...

The pocket does go quite far up,

but there isn't a lot of debris coming out of it,

so it's not too contaminated.

With these sorts of wounds, we'll always leave them open.

We don't suture them up cos they can turn to...

If you just suture all the infection in,

they'll just become an abscess.

How do you feel, little man?

Is that OK? It's not the most pleasant thing to have done, is it?

With too much human contact, fox cubs can easily become

reliant on people, and as a result,

can then struggle to fend for themselves

if they're released back to the wild,

so it's critical that this little chap

is put straight into a more natural environment.

Get some sunshine.

Outside, vet nurse Tabitha Cadle is looking after a second young fox.

This is Casper, this is a fox cub that was actually found

by a member of the general public who thought he was a husky puppy

and took him to a husky breeder who very quickly spotted

that he was not a husky puppy, and so this is a very unusual white fox.

He's going to just become a friend for a while,

just so that this one's got some comfort -

they're a litter animal, a pack animal -

they would like to be together.

So we're just going to get them used to each other. Here we go.

What do you think, Casper, are you going to be nice?

Casper, come and say hello to this one.

But friendship is the last thing on our new arrival's mind

as he heads for the exit.

There's nothing wrong with your shoulder, is there?!

No, down we go, down we go, down we go.

It looks like this odd couple are going to take a bit of time

to get to know one another.

Casper, you're not remotely interested, are you?

You've got to try and be his friend.

He's got a poorly arm and you need to be his friend.

You've got to look after him.

Clare's priority is to make sure the injured cub

remains a wild animal for its own good.

The last thing you want is a semi-tame wild animal.

It becomes a danger to itself and to the people that surround it.

This little fox cub will be cared for by staff here

until he's fully fit and big enough to be released

back into the wild, in around four months' time.

Earlier, we saw how staff had to make the difficult decision

to end the pregnancy of an injured Muntjac deer.

Two months on, the good news now

is that the deer is making strong progress and is ready for release.

Les Docker and Clare Campbell are now faced with a tricky task

of catching the deer, which is sharing a pen

with a Muntjac which has just lost a leg.

-That one's panicking a bit.

-Yeah, she does a bit like to get nervous.

What one have I got?

-HE LAUGHS

-I've got the three-legged.

Still, actually getting hold of these flighty animals

can be hard going, but eventually she's nowhere left to turn.

I'll get her this time.

DEER MEWLS SHRILLY

For Les, the female's distress call

is a good sign that she's fit and healthy

and his hat comes in as a handy, makeshift hood to calm the deer down.

-There we are. It's all right, sweetie.

-I've got it.

-Got it?

DEER MEWLS

It's not long before they're heading off on the road,

ready for her release.

16 miles away, at Henley in Oxfordshire

is the country estate of Lord McAlpine.

Here, a whole array of animals,

many of which are unable to fend for themselves in the wild

live side by side, and this will be the new home of the injured deer.

This is a wonderful place to release Muntjac,

especially her with her stiff pelvis,

so it's an absolutely perfect place for her to be in.

They can keep an eye on her and so with the other Muntjac here

she can join in one big, happy family of Muntjac.

Right.

That'll do ya.

So what I'm going to do now is slide this end up,

and she'll either come out and run off like a loony,

or just wander out or just sit there, so let's see what she does.

Here we are.

CLATTERING

What're you doing?

She's going out backwards.

That was good. You always worry...

When you're letting these deer out like that

when she's had a very, very serious injury,

you always worry when she comes out

that everything's going to go wrong all of a sudden,

but she's as strong as an ox,

and as you can see, she's sort of melted into the background.

Perfect.

If you think you know of a case of wildlife crime

or a creature that needs immediate protection,

remember, there are dedicated professionals out there

who will answer your call right around the clock.

They are the people we meet on Animal 24:7.

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