A Day in the life of an SPCA Inspector
Your typical SPCA Inspector wakes up most mornings looking forward to another day at the office, which in SPCA terms means helping those who cannot speak for themselves. I doubt that an Inspector can ever be called a “Bunny Hugger” as many of the investigations do not make us want to cuddle the animals - somehow blood and guts are not huggable. They do however, evoke feelings of pity, anger towards mankind, empathy and occasionally laughter.
An Inspector needs a huge dose of common sense and a sense of humour to get through the average day which could start at around 6:00 with an emergency call. This call could range from a cat stuck in a tree to a dog hit by a car in the early morning rush hour. Of course there are those that think that the SPCA Inspector should be knocking on a neighbors doors and telling them to keep their animals quiet. Not quite part of the job description though.
By 8:00, when most office workers are having their first cup of coffee, your Inspector could be at the local abattoir making sure your dinner is being properly slaughtered or inspecting the lot of battery chickens or maybe the local pet shop. By 10:00 a call for a stray animals that the caller simply cannot keep for another hour, will have called the Inspector away to another location.
Around 12:00, just when your Inspectors think that a bite to eat is called for, the phone will ring and a upset caller will be asking how to get a horse out of a freshly dug grave. By 14:00 the horse is happily roaming with its companions, and a cup of coffee sounds like a perfect solution to a parched throat, when another call comes in, the caller describing the dreadful condition of a bird farm, off the Inspector goes to investigate, coffee cooling on the desk.
By 14:00 when the office workers are heading home, the Inspector could be called to assist authorities to get roaming sheep off a busy road. Once the sheep are safe your Inspector will go back to the kennels and do a final check on all the animals in the SPCA's care. Homeward bound by 18:00 but by no means off duty, the emergency line could ring at any time.
22:00 and the emergency phone is ringing, a stray dog has been hit by a car and the distressed caller is standing with the injured dog and needs help. Your every friendly Inspector grabs keys, torch and heads out to the scene. One large black dog is lying in the middle of the road, she has laboured breathing and a fractured leg. Gently she is loaded into the bakkie and taken to the local Veterinarian for treatment.
As we say, never a dull moment, and a wide range of skills required to cope with continual changing situation.