Your thoughts on the RSPCA

[Second Summer]

How do you feel about the RSPCA?

I came across this blog post in The Spectator, but it seems a bit unfair. In one paragraph it's saying they're no longer an animal welfare charity, but has instead become an animal rights group. And then in two paragraphs down it's mentioning the criticism that it was killing animals unnecessarily. I don't think they can really be both at the same time ... Anyway, The Spectator seems to have a certain political bias, so maybe I should take what they have to say with a grain of salt.

 

[SummerRain]

I think that I have two main thoughts on the RSPCA, one is that it is an animal welfare charity so it's actions are never going to be completely aligned with my interests (and so I don't donate money to them) and the other is that in general, peoples expect far too much from the RSPCA.

The RSPCA are a charity - they aren't obliged to do anything, so all the work would otherwise not be done. They aren't a government organisation, they aren't paid for with our taxes. They don't just rehome pets and wildlife, they prosecute animal cruelty, investigate cruel sports (dog fighting, badger baiting, etc) and prosecute, they help educate and work with people who can't/don't know how to care for their pets, they have their own food standards in animal welfare, which might not be perfect, but they're higher standards than any other label on the market and widespread. Etc. But they have to work within the law, deal with large numbers of complaints/questions, and with the resources they have.

A lot of charities that people prefer to the RSPCA don't do a fraction of that. The RSPCA do put pets down. But all charities that take animals in have to make a decision between taking in a few animals until they can be rehomed, and taking in many more but euthanising those that don't rehome. It's a lose-lose situation. At least the RSPCA are honest, the Dogs Trust will put down "unhealthy" dogs - but unhealthy includes badly behaved dogs. I've volunteered with small local charities, that will rehome animals that have killed animals before, that want to fight with everything that moves, etc, and wind up having dogs there for years... is that better or worse? I don't know.

Like I said, I don't support the RSPCA - but on the whole I think they do a lot of good, and they do it as a charity when really I think a lot of what they do ought to be done by the government. So I think they get a bad rap.

 

[Muggle]

I despise the RSPCA. Puff-up, power crazy maniacs the lot of them. They dress like police officers to try to scare people when in fact they haven't got any legal rights to enter homes etc by themselves.
There are far too many instances of them bringing prosecutions against people who really haven't done anything wrong and times when they do things illegally. (Like trespassing onto Bhaktivedanta Manor to murder one of the cows yet they don't give a **** about all the cruelty that farmers commit everyday.)
Then you've got the idiotic prosecutions they bring against people. Like trying to get a little old lady jailed/banned from keeping pets because she didn't want to have her dog put to sleep but the RSPCA insisted that it had to be. Even though the dog was under veterinary care and was on pain relief.

Like I said, jumped up power crazy maniacs. They don't really give a **** about animals, it's pretty obvious when you look closely at what they do.

(I can't really write coherently about the RSPCA because it makes me livid just thinking about them. What little they do for animals really should be done by the government, but the government is never going to do it when the RSPCA is still sniffing around and licking arses to get whatever power they can. )