A day in the life of an RSPCA animal care assistant (ACA).

I'm at Woodside Animal Center which is Leicester shares branch the RSPCA the center has facilities careful and rehome animals including for kennel blocks a category 3 exercise areas a woodland walk and a cabin the center is able to rehabilitate a range of animals including cats birds rabbits and of course dogs Woodside even has its own shop which has everything pet related from food to best and dog leads and you can even pick up some woodside merchandise the center employ a team of animal care assistants check the day-in day-out role of caring for the animals and this film is going to follow a typical day in the life of a CA working at website the animal care assistant I'm documenting today is 22 year old James he's worked at the center for over five years and has experience working with all the different animals that the center can care for but today James is working with the dogs and the very first job James has to do every day is prepare breakfast for the dogs he then has to put the dogs in their adjoining outside kennels before he can do that he missed the codes on the puppies and the underweight dogs and still cold and wintry outside he then has to take the house trained dogs outside so they can go to the toilet or he can clean out the kennels so why is it important to tape how to times outside okay so when we get dogs come into the center and we never know sort of how they're going to be in the kennel and normally most dogs will do their business in the kennel and but we do get the odd one that will want to go out for a wiener poo and so what we do is first thing in the morning is we'll take them out for a winner poo help them relieve themselves bless them we try and do that about four times a day and then again the following day and most dogs do boom we in the kennel you know some time to come down stressed and all just the needing to go and the dogs tend to get back to three walk today and we have volunteers that come in and help us out with that as well James then gets the hose you can clean out the kennels and fill up the dog bowls with water for the dogs to drink rum how often you clean today and we clean every day you can clean in the morning and some get the dogs out give them a good home scrub-down get more nasty dry get the pencil nice and fresh for them and then what we do in the afternoon is we do fall clean on the back so the mass of the dogs made on the outside wall then of the clear bottle so it's all nice and brash so when they go bad one of us we clean and then we have to come in the next day to do all over again Jameson goes outside with the food he prepared earlier and gives it to the dogs this is their breakfast how often do you feed the dogs we feed the dogs basically ranged on their weight and what diet they're on and most dogs get fed once in the morning and once an evening and some dogs can have three meals and sometimes clear enough for and it all comes down purely to the weight and sort of how we need to know how their diet has been in their previous home as well and most dogs will eat normally here some will struggle to eat and coming down to kennel stress and can sometimes be the food seductively really picky impossible food so it's really important we get the right nutrition and so that they do eat rather with us and also we do things like n columns as well so we stop there food in cones and that really helps them so if they're stressed it gives them something to do bit of a fun game but they're still getting food that they need as well he then prepares afternoon meals for the dogs and he makes sure to cover them to keep them fresh how do you go to medication okay so we can either give medication orally or we do it physically so with all real stuff that'll be things I put in tablets in their food and maybe put in a little bit of meat and just pop it inside mouth and all just offer another dog some dogs will take it but not all the tanks nobody likes tablets and also we do eyedrops and ear drops and also sort of washes for dogs or our skin conditions so that'll be drops in the ears drops in the eye and full wash there's so many different medications out there that we have to give to the dogs and so we try and obviously keep on top of that and provide them with the need and care that they need James then completes his daily paperwork for the importance of paperwork okay so with the paperwork and obviously paper what's really important in any business or job industry with the animals we need to monitor so many things and these things include food and perm we chart we need to know medically how they are we do this every day so we'll take off to say that they've had a good puh-puh-puh if the dog's been sick if it's on medication we need to monitor everything so make sure it's in full health while it's with us we also do paperwork with the training so we monitor down the how well they've been in the day so walk-in and making them sit wait so we can gradually get them rehomed and that the owners know how to been with us at the center James then gives the dogs their afternoon meal before he can take his assigned dog German Shepherd Meg out to the exercise area for training what the importance of me play okay so obviously a lot of dogs you know they need to be active they need to be playful and they need time to bond with their owners good girl good girl we let virtually all of our dogs off the lead unless there's some health issues we need to look at and when we have them off lead and we play toys we groom them it's a good way to interact with the owners and we also do socialization awfully with other dogs it's really beneficial for them they absolutely love it and writers are really good and really good to get frustration out especially with kennels as they do get very stressed James then conducts a dog socialization with a puppy from another kind of bucket they're why the important veg lifestyle okay so with socializing dogs and normally when the doctors come in we never really know how the dogs react with other dogs and we do behavior work with them so we introduced them to dogs so we see how they get on and majority the dogs we get in are sociable with dogs or have previously lived with dogs but unfortunately do get dogs that are not the social with dogs and some dogs have to be muzzled when out on walks it's no fault of their own it does happen and this is why socialization is really important and when they are puppies it is crucial that you get your dog socialize with cats and dogs small animals and even people so that they're more comfortable and out on their walls it really really does benefit them a lot I'm it also beneficiaries in Aaron are James then hoses down and scrubs the outdoor kennels after getting all the dogs back inside if you can go game evolve impact on the dislocation of job yes I think it does and I think we because we do so much behavior work with our dogs here and it's really beneficial for them and learn some new commands be socialized help some guides big wild world also with the food as well you know getting used to sitting waiting blood food and just respecting their own Lismore as well after walking and feeding the dogs once more James is done for the day and after seeing a typical day in his life as an animal care assistant I'm intrigued to find out if his work helps the center rehab and rehome animals so I caught up with other members of staff to find out more so do you think would find the center is successful at rehoming aliens yesterday we're basically one of the top rehoming centers and we do rehome dogs catch converts rabbits guinea pigs hamsters rats mice you know and so yeah do breed that we do a really good job there at one time we only seen many girls come and go do you know his notable changes in their behavior bus fare here definitely we work really hard rehabilitation animals and so when they come in you know they can be jumping all over the place or nervous foraging and so we don't actually taking anything this aggressive but we do work to really like taking animals and we find them that rubber ends in the family environment suitable so the animal itself about the best dory you see success story seen many success stories I probably say the one that comes to mind most recent was the one of our owls but from will well you know a lady came to see one dog and ended up leaving with two so you know it's one of things when you can't separate some dogs if they come in as a group or pair then we do try to rehome them together and that was one of the most successful ones I'd say because she fell in love with both of them and they've been successfully rehome together do you think the daily role the democratic debate available in a massive way yes if we didn't have them animal care assistance if you know if we just had people that couldn't come all the time or could be here all the time and it wouldn't help them all so much you know being got stuff that come consistently here they understand the animals needs the boss we had trainings they know what they want to get out the unborn how to get started the animal so they have a massive role hostage with nutrition with training with behavior and so yes I do play a massive role you thought was dog trainer at Woodside do you think all the phony pay low okay it depends what kind of training you're talking about my training is done in the evenings with members of the public and we do the begin training so that's just your basic commands and teaching them to behavior than the teaching to respond to their owner and obviously a lot of that is incorporated into the dogs accent tough as well the big if I'm about the fifth or even see there's many many many dogs that we've be honed we do have a lot of structural Terry's here at Center and one that I can recall recently was a dog called Daisy and she struggled at the center she was quite stressed you know spinning in the can old I can hear it all glass off I'll see we did quite a bit work with her successfully rehomed her and to three years down the line she's now and what you would call an assistance dog the person so the ladies become registered disabled and Daisy now the sister in the home getting all pushing out the washing machine and you know for a stuffy that's that's fantastic publicity so yeah that's really good one you

Channel: Woodside Animal Centre

Views: 28,385

Rating: 4.7922077 out of 5

Keywords: RSPCA, ANIMAL WELFARE

Id: i7p5OdrOeyY

Length: 11min 30sec (690 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 29 2016