Chipper Chips

The story of a stray cat named Chips who came to us rather the worse for wear. Everything worked out well this time as a family that had been feeding him have decided to adopt him and pay for his expensive dental and eye treatments.

That is so kind hearted of them, with treatments potentially running into thousands of pounds. We have to say that this is very unusual as we usually have to pick up the tab in such cases.

If you can assist us in helping other animals that come to us, please do consider a donation. You can read the full story of Chips below.

Back at the beginning of June we received a call from one of the local RSPCA inspectors who had collected a very poorly cat in Mitcham. As he was found outside of a chip shop, he was temporarily named Chips while we arranged getting him into our accommodation and booking him an emergency vet appointment to assess his health and how we might be able to help.

Although Chips was very quiet, he seemed ok with us handling him which was a relief as the vets really needed to check him out properly. We found that he was very underweight, dehydrated, had tonnes of fleas, a heart murmur, cat flu, bad teeth and a gunky eye from entropion which is when an eyelid curls inwards and rubs against the eye. It really seemed like he had been put through the ringer!

The vets did what they could to get him out of the woods, and that day he received lots of fluids under the skin, flea and worm treatment, eyedrops, antibiotics, and a medication to reduce the cat flu symptoms. Although we managed to get this done promptly, he still needed to have a dental procedure, an echo, a blood test to rule out common conditions found in senior cats, FIV/FeLV blood test, and possibly surgery to fix the entropion. As it is unknown why Chips got this bad, it is important to look for a cause while getting him back on his feet.

While this was ongoing, we received word from the RSPCA inspectorate team that someone had come forward as Chips’ owner and wanted him back. It turned out that they lived right across the road from where Chips was found, and that they technically weren’t his official owner.

Chips had appeared as a stray a number of years ago and this family had been feeding him for a long period of time. While they had been kindly doing this, they unfortunately didn’t realise that they were the only ones looking out for him and so hadn’t thought to take him to the vets.

As we knew Chips had a lot of veterinary procedures and tests ahead of him, we wanted to make sure the owners knew what kind of financial support they were going to need to provide, so we got in touch with the vets for a rough estimate.

The minimum the treatments could cost was £1560 and the maximum it could cost is £4545. The reason the range in price is so large is because these tests and procedures might cost more depending on a few things, for example how much dental work is needed, and how complicated the entropion surgery might be. 

To our delight the owners seemed determined to have Chips officially and were happy to pay for the relevant vet fees to get him back to good health. Our inspectors are working with the owners to make sure Chip’s welfare is prioritised and that the procedures and tests he needs are done as planned.

Unfortunately it’s incredibly common for people with good intentions to take care of their local strays, only to stop their efforts at providing food, water and shelter. These cats rely on the kindness and compassion of the community, and very often it occurs where it is assumed someone else is responsible for the physical health of the cat they’re feeding.

We are lucky in this situation that the family who had been feeding Chips has realised their assumptions were misguided and they are now making things right by fully committing to him. We hope Chips gets good news from all his tests, and we are looking forward to checking back in with him and his owners!

Although things worked out well in this case, a lot of the time we are faced with sizeable vet bills from treating cats that come to us a bit worn and torn. If no-one had come forward for Chips we would have been faced with another large bill!

We greatly appreciate any help we can get from the public so that we can continue to help cats and other animals get back on their feet, and so if you are interested in donating to the RSPCA South London Branch you can follow this link to our JustGiving page: https://www.justgiving.com/rspcacroydon-crystalpalace.

Thanks for reading.