If you think we're a nation of animal lovers, think again. Anna Carey spends a day at a DSPCA shelter that takes in 20 neglected creatures - dogs, cats, horses, snakes - daily. The staff say their often grim work has its rewards, though. After all, how many employers let you bring your dog to work?
The lurcher puppy is one of the first arrivals at the DSPCA shelter on a wet Friday morning. Just a couple of months old, she was found abandoned outside a west Dublin shopping centre, her biscuit-coloured fur matted and muddy. She's just been collected and brought to the shelter by DSPCA ambulance driver Liam Kinsella, who's now coaxing her out of the van. The puppy allows Kinsella to pick her up and carry her off. Soon she'll be clean, well-fed and warm and, once given a medical all-clear, she'll be re-homed to a carefully inspected new owner. She's very lucky. Unlike many abandoned and mistreated animals, the little lurcher's story will have a happy ending.
So it is with most of the animals which enter the Dublin Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals's doors. Founded in 1840, the DSPCA aims both to help ill-treated animals and to educate people about their care. It's a service this country definitely needs, because as many of the people who work here point out, the Irish are not a nation of animal lovers. "In Ireland we're all from farming stock," says Jimmy Cahill, a retired electronic engineer who became the society's chairman in December 2003. "On farms, animals are there to work, or to be sold for money. Traditionally, their welfare was never an issue. And we're still treating animals like that."
But the DSPCA aims to change this attitude. Gillian Bird, my host for the day, is the society's Education Officer, and much of her work involves visiting schools, youth groups and traveller community groups, educating people about animal welfare. This morning she's showing a group of Swords schoolgirls around the shelter, which is situated on the outskirts of Rathfarnham. It's a beautifully designed, modern complex that extends over several acres of land, with a gorgeous view of the Dublin mountains.
Before the girls are taken to coo over the animals that are waiting to be housed, Gillian shows them a film. The society is currently working on a campaign to promote compassionate treatment of horses, and have made a DVD that they plan to send to some of the biggest horse dealers in the world.
The society is particularly concerned about Smithfield Horse Market, where wild British ponies taken during the regular culls in places such as Dartmoor and Bodmin are sold. These animals, unused to humans, are usually heavily tranquillised before being sold, often to youngsters who have neither the means nor the expertise to look after them properly.
The society hopes that the DVD film, which shows the terrified ponies being kicked and dragged about the market, will draw these dealers' attention to cruelty in the equine trade and attract some donations.
When we leave the screening room, we see some of the wild ponies which were rescued from the market, now grazing happily in a nearby field. At times, the shelter feels like a strange sort of farm.There are plump rabbits, and plumper hens. There are lots of ducks. There are young goats, and a remarkably timid sheep. There are the kennels, where rows of bouncy dogs of all sizes bark a greeting to anyone who passes by.
And there is the cattery. On each side of the long, low building is a barred-in run where the cats can socialise and run around. Inside, the walls are lined with cosy little pods, one for each cat. The pods contain a litter tray, food bowls, and bedding, and all have a little catflap leading out into the airy cat runs; the feline residents can come and go from the pods as they please.
All of these animals were abandoned or badly treated by their owners. The DSPCA doesn't take in healthy strays; all the creatures in its care have been abandoned, injured, or seized from cruel owners. It receives 75,000 calls every year, and can take in as many as 20 animals a day. The society doesn't put down animals unless they are too sick or badly injured to survive. All healthy animals are put up for re-homing, but the criteria for would-be owners is very strict (you can't take a dog if it's going to be left alone all day), and there are always follow-up checks to make sure the animals are being well looked after.
Luckily, there's a rapid turnover rate, and the cats seldom have to wait more than a few months at the very most before finding a new home. Kittens are always easy to re-home, but the cattery is still full of their slightly older brethren. The soothing sounds of Vivaldi echo through the clean, white-painted room; apparently the cats love Lyric FM. "Cats really like classical music," says Gillian. "They especially like anything with strings. Dogs, on the other hand, prefer talk radio." The Vivaldi piece ends and an operatic aria comes on. As the cats enjoy the music through the bars of the run, it's rather like a feline version of The Shawshank Redemption. Without the callous guards, of course.
Instead, there's Neil Stafford, who started at the shelter as a volunteer before joining the full- time staff. "I always wanted to work with animals," he says. "I spent my Communion money on my first budgie." Stafford's love of animals is reflected in his fellow workers. "You couldn't work here if you didn't care about animals," says Cahill, and many of the DSPCA workers bring their pets - usually dogs - into work. There are dog beds behind the reception desk, and the remarkably well-behaved, friendly canines amble at will around the complex, pushing through dog-sized gates and doors.
Today, Molly, a huge German Shepherd belonging to DSPCA ambulance driver Tony McGovern, is going under the knife to ensure she doesn't produce any unwanted puppies.
Regular visiting vet Aidan Cahill is adamant on the need for pet owners to neuter or spay their pets. "It's the most important thing you can do if you have a pet," he says, scrubbing up for the operation. "We get so many abandoned puppies and kittens in here, and there's no need." The procedure (which I watch through my fingers) is over surprisingly quickly, and Molly is expected to make a speedy recovery.
The DCPCA is the only charity which takes in injured wild animals as well as domestic ones, and foxes, badgers and wild birds are regular patients. PJ Doyle is in charge of these creatures, which are kept away from other animals and people to ensure they don't become too domesticated. He's currently caring for a pair of abandoned baby hedgehogs. But some of the animals are wilder than others, as I discover when PJ appears in a doorway with one arm covered in the shining green coils of a ratsnake, presumed to be an escaped pet.
While many of the animals which arrive in the shelter have suffered neglect, others have been victims of calculated cruelty. Buster, a friendly and gigantic Great Dane-German Shepherd cross, which is now the junior mascot of the society, was taken from a halting site eight years ago when he was six weeks old. He had been badly beaten and kicked. And just a few days before my visit, a black and white cat was brought in which had been covered in petrol and set alight. The badly-burned cat survived for several days before a a man found it in his garden and immediately brought it in to the shelter.
"I thought it was a ginger cat at first," says Gillian Bird. "Most of the fur on its body had been burned off." The cat was beyond help, and was put to sleep. Cases like these are the reason few of the workers have much faith in human nature. "That's gone within six weeks of working here," says Liam Kinsella. "When you see things like that cat, you see how cruel people can be." Jimmy Cahill agrees, and he believes that in some ways, things have got worse. "People have always treated animals badly. When you look back in the archives, you see how people were cruel to animals back in the 1840s," says Cahill. "But then they were cruel out of poverty and ignorance. Now I think they're cruel out of boredom. They just think it's fun. I don't understand why they can't get pleasure out of treating an animal well as a pet, of having an animal that looks up to you. But they don't. They just want excitement."
Inspector Robert Kenny sees the results of such "excitement" on a regular basis; he responds to calls from the public about neglected or beaten animals. "Nine out of 10 cases is a dog with no shelter or food," he says. If the dog's owners haven't taken the ailing animal to the vet, the society can seize it.
However, while neglect and starvation are easily detectable, violent physical abuse is harder to detect - or at least prove on sight. "You can't prove an injury unless there's bleeding," Kenny says. "You can't see bruises on a dog. Unless you catch them in the act, there's nothing you can do." It's frustrating work, not least because there are plenty of time wasters.
"You get a lot of calls from people who just want to cause trouble for their neighbours," Kenny says. "You go out there and find they don't even have a dog at all." Members of the public sometimes bring animals in themselves. A man and his toddler son are sitting in the entrance hall, playing with one of the shelter's dogs. They just brought in a newborn kitten that they found abandoned, presumably by its mother, outside their house the night before.
Gillian and I head off to see this lucky new arrival. But the news isn't good. The kitten is still alive - but only just. Her body is already cold, meaning she has almost no chance survival. All the society can do is wrap her in a snug towel and keep her safe and warm before she dies. The towel is getting cold and damp, and as Gillian changes it for a fresh one I take the fragile creature gently in my hands. She's just inches long and, with her small, ears and closed eyes, barely looks like a kitten at all. As I lift her out of her box, she opens her pink mouth in an inaudible meow and feebly waves minuscule paws. And then she stops moving at all. She's still alive, but is just too weak to move. I'm scared to put her down again, in case I hurt her. When I do ease her onto her fresh tea-towel bed, I let her head rest on my fingers for a moment; I don't want to jolt the tiny skull by setting her down on the towel. The kitten is dying.
BUT most of the animals who arrive at the shelter survive. "Ninety-eight per cent of the cases that come here are ultimately happy cases," says Cahill. "You do get the two per cent that are beyond help, but most of them survive and go to good homes." The knowledge that they are saving animal lives is what keeps the workers going. "You'll take a badly injured animal in and it's in ribbons," says Liam Kinsella. "And the vet will patch it up and it'll go off to a new home. That makes everything worthwhile."
The DSPCA shelter gets a government grant of €17,000 a year, a sum that is intended to be used for providing animal neutering services for people on low incomes. This just pays for its waste disposal, however, and the rest of the money is raised by donations. Jimmy Cahill's job is, in his own words "to get hold of €1 million a year." It's a tough job, but for Cahill, it's a labour of love. And his ambition is to become unnecessary; he sees the society's education work as an investment in the future.
"It might be too later for older people, but there's a chance that the younger generation will grow up treating animals better," he says. "Maybe one day we won't be needed at all." u
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CASE HISTORY: BECKHAM
When the black Rottweiler-cross accompanies Gillian Bird on her educational visits, all eyes are on him. But when Beckham first attracted the attention of the DSPCA, it was for all the wrong reasons. He was found in a back garden in Ballyfermot in 2002, in what inspector Robert Kenny described as "an advanced state of neglect". Every rib was visible, and he was so weak and malnourished, he could barely stand. As a result, his owner was banned for life from owning a pet, and fined €150. The dog's emaciated state earned him the name Beckham - after skinny Victoria, not footballing David. Having been nursed back to health at the DSPCA shelter, Beckham became a full-time resident, and began accompanying Gillian on her outings to schools and community groups. Eventually, he went to live with her full-time - although he still comes into work every day.
CASE HISTORY: MAGNUM
The sturdy tabby in the spacious cage is like any other cat - except for his bionic attachment. On May 30th, he was brought to the DSPCA shelter in agony, having been shot in the leg with a lead pellet. The vets estimated that the accident had happened several days before. The pellet shattered the bone, and emergency surgery was required. To aid healing of the bones, an external device known as a fixater was attached to the cat's leg. Magnum, as he was named by the staff, is making a full recovery, and seems quite indifferent to his metal spikes.
CASE HISTORY: AND FERGUS
Looking at Helen Carr's boisterous pets, you'd never guess that just a few years ago they were scrawny waifs. Helen and her housemates adopted Fergus and Willow from the DSPCA shelter in 2002. "We had intended to get one cat, but Fergus and Willow came from the same group of cats - they were both neglect cases - and they completely won us over, pawing at the front of their cages and purring, so we took them both," she says. "I'm so glad we did, because they are great company for each other." It took the cats a while to settle into their new, secure home. "They were so unused to being fed regularly, and looked after, that it took them a while to learn that we were going to feed them, and that they didn't need to try to open cupboards and so on to find food."