RSPCA DAY - Part I

On Thursday 23rd July I had my day with an RSPCA Inspector as won in a competition run by PetStreet. I was more than a little nervous about the day as i just didn´t know what to expect. The inspector arrived at about 9am having had to travel from the maidstone area to pick me up. she explained to me that the area each inspector covers is quite vast and she showed me a map of the area she covered. Unfortunately i couldn´t keep a copy of the map or i would have uploaded it to show you all.

Firstly, I’m going to try to set out the information I learned and the questions I asked. I will then do some narrative about the actual day itself. You will have to bear with me. I found the day quite hard going and re-thinking it all now is quite difficult.


The Inspector informed me that as a whole, the RSPCA receive around 4,000 phone calls per day from members of the public. I asked whether the call centre staff receiving these calls had to have any special training or knowledge and she said that she believed that although they would be given guidelines to work by, the call centre staff do not necessarily have to have any animal related qualifications or knowledge. the call centre staff are not actually employed by the RSPCA, the centre is run by a different company and there is no doubt that some of those staff just view it as any other "call centre" job. She did say however, that it should be taken in to account when criticising the call centre, that there are not a large amount of people working in the call centre compared to the huge volume of calls they receive per day.

i then asked if you had to have an animal related background to become an RSPCA inspector and she said that really, people skills were considered to be more important. i understand this perspective to a certain degree...doing the job the inspectors do, you need to be able to deal with people in a calm manner especially if the person they are dealing with is aggressive and angry. i also understand that "technical" stuff with regards to dealing with the animals can be taught, ie capture procedures, restraint procedures etc. but in my mind it would surely be a help if people could demonstrate when applying to become an inspector, that they have some kind of compassion for animals?

The Inspector then asked me why i thought the RSPCA got such a hard time from people and other charities etc and i said that i believed it was, in part, down to the amount of animals they pts. She said that she understood this but that the figures "we" receive cannot always be taken on face value. she said that other charities have the luxury of being able to pick and choose the animals they take in for rehoming, ie Dogs Trust will not take in certain breeds as they know they won´t be able to find them a home very easily. Unfortunately the RSPCA don´t have this luxury, they have to take in all animals that come their way and they too find it hard to rehome certain breeds and on some occasions they have no choice but to pts these animals as they just have nowhere to put them. I found this very sad and one of the main issues that arose for me out of the whole day. I DO understand that obviously they need to house the animals they take in but it is so upsetting to know that so many healthy animals are pts each year because there is just no room for them.