rspcaThe RSPCA is a defunct and heinous authoritarian establishment that should no longer exist in Britain. Run by joyless bureaucrats who treat humans with about as much respect as dish-rags, with no obvious benefit to the millions of pets in this country, it exploits the powers granted to it by the state and the contradictory, sloppily worded Animal Welfare Act 2006 to terrorise innocent animal-lovers across the UK. Most of the public don’t know how powerful a lobby group and propaganda machine the RSPCA actually is. It has successfully sewn up all the major bodies which play a part in implementing the AWA (not just the police and the media, but the general public and even law courts too), and uses them to hound people for their own financial gain.

Yes it is cheaper to prosecute than advertise. And since the RSPCA have the power to prosecute, they have been milking this power for all its worth – after all every court case brings publicity and therefore, donations. The budget is almost entirely funded by donations – in excess of £100 million a year. Staffs at the RSPCA are paid handsomely, and get free housing loans. The UK’s ‘Director-General” has an annual salary of £90,000. They recently built a new Head Quarters costing ten million pounds and other newly built local facilities now house more staff and fewer animals. Then there is the story of the RSPCA facility at Swansea. After ten years of fund-raising they felt ready to build a new and better centre. It now has excellent, spacious administrative offices, but room to keep just 27 dogs. They had previously been able to house 140. It’s good to know that the donations are being spent usefully. Presumably the dogs that can no longer be housed will put down immediately, on the grounds of their age, or some asserted (but unproven) defect.

A quick look at the facts will tell you everything you need to know. The RSPCA kills over half of the cats and dogs it comes into contact with. The AWA 2006 could see you incarcerated for letting your dog eat a piece of chocolate. The RSPCA regularly and illegally break into people’s houses and seize their pets for no good reason. They seem to have three ways of dealing with complaints about this by the way. One is destroying the evidence, such as by cremating the bodies, so the defendant can in no way prove that their pet was not suffering from injuries or disease at the time of their seizure. The second is by keeping the animal in a so-called ‘safe haven’ of solitary confinement so that the defendant cannot even access the animal in order for their vet or animal doctor to run an independent assessment of the animal prior to any trial proceedings. And let’s not forget their penchant of hiring unprofessional vets of their own, or vets that are willing to lie in court and produce one-sided arguments in order to gain favour with the RSPCA. Council members who question the RSPCA are silenced and dismissed. And finally, the very fact that the RSPCA equates ‘saving’ an animal with ‘putting it down’ should be enough to make our hairs stand on end. Just try typing ‘RPSCA victims’ into Google and see what you come up with.

Such case studies are growing in huge numbers every year – there is even a website called ‘Victims of the RSPCA’ where innocent pet lovers across the UK describe their shameful treatment at the hands of this all too forceful and frankly unnecessary authoritarian charity, such as the pensioner couple who were told their beloved cat was suffering from starvation, liver failure and blindness, and it would have to be put down. In fact it was only suffering from fleas. Had they let their cat go with the RSPCA inspector she would certainly have been murdered. Or the story of a friend who had his beloved puppies and their mother forcibly taken away from him at eight days old simply for having their tails docked (a process known to cause little to no pain or discomfort if done within a few days of birth). The puppies were left in appalling cramped conditions, developed debilitating diseases which stunted them while the owner was not only charged thousands of pounds in kennelling costs but also had his story splashed across the pages of his local paper – along with a colour photograph of his house – which was subsequently vandalised and continues to be targeted by such attacks every year. It’s just publicity for the RSPCA who see their donations increase every time they run a smear against an innocent pet-owner.  Or how about the case of a dog shelter in Ghent, Wales which the RSPCA deemed ‘overcrowded’ despite the hours of care afforded to every dog from dedicated and genuine animal-loving workers. Under strict orders never to repeat the the happenings, the workers were forced to slaughter over 70 dogs at the shelter, to comply with the RSPCA rules and regulations and many suffered from nervous breakdowns as a result. This story and countless others paint a very different picture of the RSPCA indeed – but even so their slick PR machine is as well oiled as it ever was and the public still remain woefully unaware that their primary concern has become how to keep the money flowing. Why do we keep letting them get away with this?

Maybe it is their PR machine and how good it is as bringing them out shining in every case. As recently as last year the RSPCA launched a campaign to stop children in schools from having classroom pets – a cornerstone of learning how to care for animals and take responsibility for them. In an increasingly bureaucratic age where even our children’s educations are being cross-examined, mutilated, revised and tested by our over-compensating government, a classroom pet can bring some much needed respite into a class and give teachers and pupils a rare opportunity to bond. Not anymore, thanks to the RSPCA who ‘worry’ that the bright lights and noisy conditions may distress the animals – while of course keeping them in equally noisy, cramped cages in their “shelters” wouldn’t. Added to this their declaration that pet shops should not be allowed to sell pets as many pet-shop owners are “unaware as to how to care for the animals”, and what you have is a growing and frightening monopoly over animal ‘welfare’ and even pet ownership. And why should we doubt that this is what the RSPCA has had in mind all along? If they can wield their power over the smallest shelters in local areas, they can almost certainly do the same to pet shops and suddenly, nobody will be able to purchase a pet without first being vetted stringently by the RSPCA. And no matter how much “Animal Rights Activists” will bleat that this is a good idea – I certainly wouldn’t want to see my wish to own a pet get dissected and scrutinised by a charity that is as ruthless as it is incompetent. As an aside, I want to add that I truly despair of you so-called animal rights activists. Don’t you think it’s time that we began trusting each other in this country? Not every man woman or child that wants to own a dog has a view to abusing it you know. The result of 12 years of this right-curbing government is a people that sanctimoniously believe they have a right to vet every potential animal owner. It’s wrong.  I abhor a monopoly of any kind and I can warn you now that a monopoly of this kind will make it increasingly difficult to own a pet, increasingly impossible to look after it with your privacy intact, and almost guarantee that the welfare of animals be side-stepped as the ‘charity’ bloats and makes more and more money for itself.

The deeper one digs, the more disturbing the facts are that come out – council members sacked for daring to question their policies, animals being forcibly taken away and put down without the consent of their owners, and those same owners then being charged for kennelling costs. The organisation is rotten, corrupt to the core, and there is sparse evidence to suggest that they have improved the welfare of animals in this country. Putting animals down does not equate with ‘saving’ them and I resent their twisted logic on this matter. Given a choice between living on the street and being killed ‘humanely’ I know which one I’d pick. Why shouldn’t our pets, and indeed their loving and caring owners be given the same choice?

Written by: Elcin Kurtulus.