Tell me us little about yourself
I belong to a crazy Italian family that grew in the UK thanks to both sets of Grandparents who moved here for work as young adults. Growing up around fantastic cooks meant that I unsurprisingly developed a love for cooking (and eating!), as well as family parties.
The above picture shows some home made pasta sheets that Cheska created – paw prints courtesy of Cheska’s cat Arya!
Our yearly trips to Italy are also responsible for my love of animals, because the area we always went back to had its own cast of semi-stray cats and dogs we would spend our time feeding up and looking after.
I grew up in Croydon however, and I pursued a career with animals by studying Animal Management as a BTEC and then heading to university to study a Zoology undergraduate degree. I then volunteered and worked at a zoo with reptiles and amphibians for 11 years!
Besides animals and food, I also love gaming and get lots of compliments on my collection of old PlayStation games.
How long have you been doing the role?
I started my role as Animal Welfare Officer in September 2022, so it’s been just shy of five months so far. It actually feels like it’s been a lot longer, it’s hard to remember a time where I wasn’t working for this RSPCA branch!
Why did you join the RSPCA?
While the conservation work being done by the zoo was important and I loved contributing to it, I felt that it was time for something new. I knew I wanted to work for another charity organisation, but in a more active role where I could have more autonomy and complete work that was more instantly rewarding. I looked for a while for a role that suited what I was looking for and I eventually found the job position for Animal Welfare Officer!
One of the downsides of wanting a career with animals is that there aren’t limitless jobs to choose from within each specialty group of animals, however I am very lucky that I grew up with a fascination and love of all animals. For me, moving from conserving reptiles and amphibians to caring for the domestic animals in our branch area was a no brainer!
What are your responsibilities?
Overall my responsibilities are to protect and promote the welfare of animals, but within my job this is broken down into many parts.
I respond to animal welfare issues reported to me via the branch manager and the inspectorate team, and this could be picking up sick, injured and abandoned/unwanted animals and taking them to boarding facilities or the vets.
Once the animals are in our care, I am then responsible for organising their vet appointments; for standalone health issues or to help them get ready for the adoption process.
Some animals also require specialist help, such as nervous cats in foster care where I might need to loop in a behaviourist, or feral cats in our care who I might need to help find a specialist home for.
It is important for me to keep regular contact with the fosterers and the owners of the private boarding facilities so I can affectively monitor how everyone is doing, and this helps me keep our records up-to-date.
My responsibilities are very varied and range across transport, fundraising, record keeping, social media, monitoring, taking calls from the public, and volunteering any spare time to help the inspectorate team.
What does a typical day look like in your role?
Every day is completely different in my role, as sometimes I get up early to take a cat to the vets for 8.30am for a neutering appointment, and other times I have the mornings free to catch up on the bits I need to do at home on the computer. A good example however looks like the following from last month:
Took a cat of ours to the vet for dental for 8.30am, picked up a faecal sample from a fosterer, dropped it off to the vets, book some appointments for other cats while I was there, had lunch, picked up the cat that had dental and took her back to the private boarding facility, picked up medication from the vets while I was there, drove the medication to a fosterers house, drove nearby to an anxious cat that needed feeding while the fosterer was away and set up extra hides for her to try to make her more comfortable, drove home!
We have two private boarding facilities, six active fosterers, and three main vet practices we use, so I must be careful with how I plan my day.
If I do it incorrectly then I could spend hours in the van driving from one end of our branch area to the other! On the days where I have more time I will catch up on my computer bits at home, and this could be recording the outcomes of vet appointments, creating social media posts, emailing back fosterers etc. (see OUR AREA to view the postcode areas that make up our branch area).
What elements of your job if any do you dislike?
It’s hard to think of something I dislike about this job because I really am over the moon with it! I guess the hardest part for me has been discovering that legally there isn’t a lot that can be done to get animals out of unhygienic or potentially unsafe environments.
Although investigating homes isn’t within my job role, I do sometimes visit people’s houses and see subpar living conditions that the law currently views as acceptable. Hopefully over time the laws can be stricter so we can continue to improve the minimum standard that animals are kept at!
Do you have a message for our followers/supporters/volunteers?
It’s been a real pleasure interacting with all our supporters and volunteers. It’s so much fun being able to share our work on social media and to see everyone interact with the content because it really highlights the community we are a part of. It means the world to us when we can see our messages being shared and appreciated, and we hope that our supporters will help us to keep on growing!
I am also very grateful for those who volunteer for us, whether that’s fosterers or those willing to lend a hand with driving and visiting foster cats.
We have some fantastic fosterers volunteering for us at the moment who take on board everything we suggest, including turning someone’s living room into a pillow fort for an anxious cat! We wouldn’t be able to provide our cats with such tailored care if it weren’t for the trust the fosterers have in us.
We also have a small number of volunteers who were generous enough to offer transport and assistance in visiting foster cats over the Christmas period, which is particularly important for those anxious cats that would have taken a step back in their progress by being moved again to a different environment.
If anyone has been thinking about volunteering for us but hasn’t been sure how they could help or how much time they could offer us, please don’t worry about getting in touch! There are tonnes of small ways you might be able to help us without having to dedicate lots of time! See our contact page to get in touch.
What is your favourite domestic and favourite British wild animal, and why?
My favourite domestic animal has to be the cat! I grew up loving all domestic animals; being that annoying child who kept bugging my parents for a cat or dog or any kind of mammal.
However I finally settled on cats because I really enjoy the idea that what you get from them is what you put in. I find it rewarding when a cat has decided to trust you or sits on you warily for the first time, because it’s a result of your hard work nurturing the relationship.
Obviously some cats are easier to win over, but my eventual first cat really took a while to win over and it made our relationship so much more special.
My favourite British wild animal is the roe deer, because the house I grew up in had a garden that backed onto a small woodland and as a child I had the weirdest experience of going into that woodland and swearing blind I saw a deer running away from me.
I was small so wasn’t sure whether or not to believe it, especially seeing as the woodland was sandwiched between everyone’s gardens and we lived in Croydon!
Twenty years later and we’ve since seen these deer running around the front gardens and breaking into our own garden to eat and sunbathe. It was a childhood mystery that has only recently been solved so roe deer have always tickled me!
RSPCA South London 