Well it seems down to personal experience of a vast majority on this board there is no doubt the RSPCA is useless and we should be donating to organisations whos aim it is to help animals and not make a profit.

>>there is no doubt the RSPCA is useless<<

Sharonb, I disagree entirely with your point.
Theres a lot of slagging off of the RSPCA on here because of personal experiences and I agree these should never have happened.
Even though the RSPCA CAN BE a bunch of lazy idiots think of all those animals they DO manage to save. Think of all those rescue homes around the country filled with abandoned dogs and cats looking for new homes that have been rescued by the RSPCA and can now have a second chance. Where do you all think these dogs and cats would go if there was no RSPCA? there'd be no room in the other homes across the country so these animals would end up dead.
So I wouldn't consider the RSPCA ''useless'' at all.

Yes but there must be some amount of good done. I meen they need some healthy dogs/cats to sell to make their huge profits. How much is it now for a dog or cat from them. The post by Mattie really opened my eyes big time. That is the worst report I have ever heared about them. Tell me Mattie did they also refuse the poor womans money as well as her 2 dogs.

Whatever "good" work the RSPCA do is more than outweighed by the "bad" work of their appalling PETA style political campaigning. Donate to the PDSA or WOOD GREEN or any of the really good animal charities where the money gets spent on animals not politics.

I must say I am quite surprised to hear this, a few years ago we had a fox dying in the garden obviously in pain the RSPCA came out straight away and destroyed it. We thought they were brilliant and gave a donation sounds like things have changed.
Ange

Pdsa will take people who are tenents/homeowners in receipt of housing benefit or council tax benefit only. Again they are a charity and if they are the rules then they are the rules. However, take any animal that does not qualify and they WILL give emergency treatment. You would then be referred.
Sounds fair to me :)
As for the rspca i dont really have a comment.. for its been said many times before

Donna and charliex

As a wildlife rescuer, I often have dealings with the RSPCA, very rarely good ones.  I would also like to point out that I personally cover an area that is covered by no less than four rspca inspectors!

For a start, someone sees an owl in my aviaries and complains to 'them'. Even though they know me, they still come out and 'inspect' my premises, wasting time and money.  I think they do this for at least one of the reasons below.

As for rescuing animals, they might come out promptly if there happens to be an inpector in the area, but only then.  I am often called out to help animals and birds that are injured and causing a lot of distress to people watching, often young school children. They tell me that they have called the rspca but that was hours ago, when someone looked up my number.  Sometimes they get back to me telling me that the rspca came several hours after I had left, or that the they had never heard back from the rspca at all!
Once I was called out to rescue a deer that had been involved in an RTA and had managed to crawl into the playground of a local primary school. The rspca had been called as well, but an hour earlier, and as they had not turned up the school caretaker  called me. I was there within ten minutes.  I took the deer to a vet where it was treated, then I took it home for nursing. It was eventually released back in the area where it was found, though a little further from the road :0).
The vet told me that it was touch and go, and that if I had been any later (about an hour) he would have advised to have it put down.  The school told me the rspca got there the NEXT MORNING, and complianed at being called out to a 'false alarm' as he called it.

There was also the time when there had been an oil spillage in the local dock (Ipswich).  Someone on the port staff who knows me called me at 0400, I was there by 0430 and started pulling oiled swans out there and then. I set up a holding station, arranged some cover when the sun came up and buckets for drinking water.  I personally pulled out 19 swans, with four others being pulled out by dockworkers.  The rspca? They turned up at 1000, spent all day chasing swans in a little boat, pulled out a further 8 swans and went home at 1700 sharp.  I carried on and pulled out another 3 swans untill it got too dark to work.
Oh, and who got into the local paper, hailed as the heroes of the hour? Yes, the rspca, with a nice picture of an inspector putting a swan in a swan bag.

I have plenty more stories such as this, but I hope this is enough to voice my opinion of the rspca.

Just thought I would add my opinion of the RSPCA. I never give money to them when they are out with their collection boxes because I don't think even half the money people give go to the animals. (I always make up a box of goodies toys and leads so that way you know the animals gets it) I lost faith in the RSPCA When I reported a horse in a terrible state, it was extremely thin as you could see all its ribs, it had an ewe neck, mites, runny eyes and bad cracks in its hooves. It was running loose on the village common and i knew it was old (about 24) I also knew that the owners had two paddocks and three stables so you would think they would give the horse a better life in its old age. When I rung the RSPCA ( which took forever) they told me I had to find out the owners name, address, and telephone number. I thought this was strange, but seeings I knew most of this anyway I obliged. Two weeks later and the horse was still there and when I rung again was told there was nothing they could do as the horse wasn't in a badder anough state, i told them i had seen animals in a better state taken in on their tv programmes but they were not interested. The horse later died.

Yeah I had to laugh last night watching a programe on animal planet. THe RSPCA called out to cat with its leg stuck in its collor. They were out straight away to it. What a bunch of liars. Bet anything you like if I phoned them saying that they wouldnt be out. Thats what gets to me the way they want us to see them is much different to the actual facts.

I came across this on a web-site a while ago, thought it might be of interest :-

'The RSPCA is very good at impression management and PR work, but doesn't deliver the goods. Their primary concern has become how to keep the money flowing. The RSPCA budget is almost entirely funded by donations. RSPCA staff are paid handsomely, and get free housing loans. The UK's 'Director-General" since 1991 is ex-Major General Peter Davies, who gets paid ninety thousand pounds stirling per annum. They have just built a new Head Quarters costing ten million pounds. Other newly built local facilities now house more staff and less animals. '

I have rung the RSPCA time and time again over the years to try to get assistance with injured birds, or at least to get advice, and never yet have I managed to get them to answer the phone, except once, when an injured bird was in my garden.  I had no transport so no way of getting it to a vet and the RSPCA just told me to leave it! :0

Heavens knows why I keep trying to get hold of them, but never again now, it's not worth my time or energy, I'll just try other avenues instead.

Funnily enough some people from the RSPCA turned up on my doorstep asking if I would like to donate money to them....my response was quite interesting and certainly not what they were expecting! ;)

I find it so strange that the people who become inspectors must love animals and be very dedicated to improving animal welfare or they wouldn't be in the job - after all, it's not that well paid, can be dangerous and  presumably isn't 9-5. So what on earth is going on?

I called them a few years ago when we had the most wonderful blue and yellow macaw flying around our house - he ate next doors cherries on their tree, and sounded like a pterodactyl <g>, but I was worried about what would happen to him when winter came. It was brilliant seeing him fly free. But the RSPCA were not much help and didn't even offer any ideas on how to catch him.

Lindsay
X

There are 323 inspectors in the whole of the UK, 3 a day shift patterns, holiday, sick and parental leave must mean less than 100 are on duty at any one time.  Hardly surprising then that they don't respond instantly to every single call out.  Now that may be an arguement for spending more of their money on inspectors and less on political campaigns ;) but I think it is also an arguement for people to recognise that their remit is to prevent suffering, but that doesn't prevent other welfare organisations (who also take charitable donations) and even individuals doing their bit when they can and not expecting them to taxi, already rescued, animals to a vet if they have the resources to do it themselves.

I think most people would agree that if you can do something to help, then they would. The feeling that I get so far from these posts is that the RSPCA give the impression that they WILL come out to 'any' animal emergency when they are asking for money, but don't deliver on what 'they' say they will do.

Linsay, yes, they start off being dedicated, but soon fall into the 'toe the line to keep my job' thing.  As for the 'not well paid' bit, well they are not rich, but they do get a good wage, better than most and other little benefits like help with their housing costs which is a big chunk of most peoples outgoings.
'9 to 5', well, they do occasionally get called out of hours to something major, but don't bother trying to get hold of an inspector befor 9 or after 1700 because the call centre will not call them!

Just thought I would add to tybys' note.
Their new headquarters ended up costing £35 million and their new Director General is an ex politition who was chucked out of her constituency, so knows nothing about running an organisation and nothing about reading a financial spreadsheet! She was only taken on because she was very strong against foxhunting. She also gets £90,000 per year, plus expenses.
It was estimated a couple of years ago that 85% of all donations goes on administration.
So, the RSPCA is running to keep itself running.
Has anyone seen the latest adverts? I wonder how much they cost?

They have probably got a few libel lawyers on the payrole too ;)

Oh yes! The have a huge legal department, quote by an inspector "bigger than a lot of solicitors offices".
Last year they spent £8000 on tracking the emails of one of their own councillors who they suspected of talking to the press. It turned out that it wasn't him!

Thing is if you don't like the hours, conditions etc. don't apply to be an RSPCA officer - simple as that!   Animals can't keep their hours to only 9-5 to be ill, suffering etc.   It's part & parcel of the job.