Issue 55 February 2019
RSPCA Little Valley Animal Shelter, Black Hat Lane, Bakers Hill, Exeter EX2 9TA
Tel: 01392 439898 www.rspca-littlevalley.org.uk
Hector, “Britain’s loneliest dog” and media star, has spent 500 days in rescue. But his Valentine wish has come true—he has a new home!
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Shelter News By Jo Evans, Shelter Manager
Welcome to the first (slightly later than planned) newsletter of 2019.
Belated Happy New Year to you all. I guess most of you will have seen or heard
about Hector in the press? Last week he was featured on This Morning alongside
Eamonn and Ruth! More news on Hector later in the newsletter.
Last time I welcomed new staff and this time I am sadly saying goodbye to Jo and
Fiona—two members of the dog team. Both will be greatly missed especially after
3 years with us. More about new staff next time.
As you will see the rebuild works continue. We are looking at October 2019 for
completion. Hopefully we will be taking over the second block of four shortly. This
does mean no events at the Shelter till later in the year and again only three
newsletters. But it’s all for the greater good. We can’t wait for the Shelter to be
fully operational again and the mud to be gone!
LITTLE VALLEY ANIMAL SHELTER RSPCA South, East & West Devon Branch Black Hat Lane, Bakers Hill, Exeter EX2 9TA Registered Charity No: 205154 Telephone: 01392 439898 Email: [email protected] Website: rspca-littlevalley.org.uk Facebook: facebook.com/rspcalittlevalley Twitter: twitter.com/rspcaexeter Instagram: rspcalittlevalleyexeter Just Giving: justgiving.com/rspcaexeter Shelter Opening Times Open 6 days a week (closed Wednesdays) 11.00am-4.00pm (Last entry: 3.30pm) 24 hr Cruelty/Advice Line: 0300 1234 999
SHOPS 1 Market Street, Brixham TQ5 8EU Tel: 01803 859695
46 High Street, Budleigh EX9 6LJ Tel: 01395 442349
31 Cowick Street, Exeter EX4 1AL Tel: 01392 213847
91 South Street, Exeter EX1 1EN Tel: 01392 494113
150 Sidwell Street, Exeter EX4 6RT Tel: 01392 210691
49 Courtenay St, Newton Abbot TQ12 2QN Tel: 01626 330716
Brutus Centre, Totnes TQ9 5RW Tel: 01803 866597
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Pets at Home Pets at Home stores in Exmouth and Marsh Barton, Exeter have been supporting us through their Adoption For Pets Appeal, which has a huge push in the summer and again at Christmas! We are their designated VIP stores for Exmouth and Marsh Barton. Below are some of the cheque presentations we’ve recently attended—thank you Exmouth and
Marsh Barton! Photos show Diana Budgen, her dog Barney and Gordon Gooding with Jemma from Exmouth collecting a cheque for £328.90 as part of the Summer Appeal. Pets at Home, Marsh Barton Exeter raised a fantastic £460.70 for us as part of the Adoption For Pets Summer Appeal. Here is manager Nick with one of his team and Shelter Manager Jo.
Before Christmas we spent some Saturdays collecting at Pets at Home Marsh Barton Exeter for the Adoption for Pets Christmas Appeal and Hector made a special guest appearance with Julie and Maria! He’s quite a star on
social media and fans came along specially to see him. Rachel also took Hector along to collect the cheque from Pets at Home Marsh Barton from their Christmas Appeal—a whopping £993.00! Thank you to all the Pets at Home and Support Adoption for Pets for their continued support.
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Friends of Little Valley By Jill Brush, Membership Secretary
Hello to all Friends of Little Valley. Sitting here in bright sunshine in Exeter today it is very difficult to assimilate the pictures on the news of vehicles abandoned in snow in Cornwall just a few days ago. We were very lucky and I hope that, wherever you are, you are safe and cosy, not frostbitten! The days are getting longer so there are good things just around the corner. Kind regards to you all. Jill Brush, Hon Membership Secretary. Email: [email protected] or 01392 422070.
Christmas Draw Winners Thank you very much to all those people who supported Little Valley by purchasing raffle tickets for the draw, which took place on the 22 November 2018. Your support is greatly appreciated. The successful winners are as follows, and thank you very much to those people who kindly donated their prizes back to the Shelter. 1st Mrs S Derrick, Okehampton 11th Mrs G Tayler, Chard 2nd Mrs D Budgen, Exmouth 12th Mr & Mrs R Combrink, Bexhill-on-Sea 3rd Mrs P Woodhams, Sidmouth 13th Mr B Dudden, Weston-Super-Mare 4th Mr M Kerslake, Whimple 14th Mrs J Edgar, Exeter 5th Mrs J Chalk, Exeter 15th Miss J Evans, Exeter 6th Mrs C Foxall, Kingsteignton 16th Mrs Brine, Ebford 7th Mrs E Valentine, Cullompton 17th Mrs Heggadon, Kersbrook 8th Mr D Taylor, Liskeard 18th Mr D Armstrong, Clyst St Mary 9th Mr/s H Billing, Exmouth 19th Mrs A Boulton, Exeter 10th Mrs J E Colville, Dawlish 20th Mr/s C A Tellis, Honiton
Santa Paws Christmas Appeal Our Santa Paws Appeal–asking for Christmas boxes of treats for the animals at the Shelter–was a resound-ing success again this year. We were overwhelmed with lots of goodies for the animals. Here is Hector investigating some of the boxes received. Thank you to everyone who donated.
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Tui Tui have been raising money for us locally at Exeter Airport by asking customers to donate their unused foreign coins. Fantastic! Three staff members from Tui came out for a tour of the Shelter—Becky Summers, Jamie Bryant and Natasha Newton. Thank you so much for supporting us.
Miss Devon Miss Devon 2018, Clara George, came to visit the Shelter– turns out like all of us, she is an animal lover too! We gave her a tour of the Shelter to show her the work that we do here. Clara is photographed here with Snoop, one of our more elderly residents, who is looking for a nice retirement home. You can find out more about Clara on her website: claraccouture.com
Ebay Volunteer Needed We need someone to help with our growing Ebay shop—to research, write content, photograph and upload product postings onto our eBay store. To prepare sold items for despatch and arrange mailing. Minimum of 3 hours per week is preferred. Flexible days with an ongoing commitment to one morning or afternoon each week. Contact: [email protected] for an application form.
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Doug Hole Before Christmas, many of the Branch’s Exmouth supporters came together to bid farewell to Doug Hole, one of Little Valley’s most loyal and dedicated volunteers. Doug’s wife, Meriel, their family and many friends were able to celebrate the life of a kind and humorous man who was a true Exmothian. Before he retired Doug had worked, appropriately, as a digger driver, latterly for South West Water. He loved a joke and when he and his fellow digger driver, Bill Digwell, turned up on jobs and announced themselves as Digwell and Hole, people reacted with disbelief! Doug was well known for his love of animals and, after retirement, dedicated much of his time to raising money for Little Valley by growing hundreds of plants which he sold from home and on plant stalls at Shelter fundraising events. He also had great empathy with dogs and, over the years, he and Meriel adopted three older, slightly challenging dogs from Little Valley. He was devoted to Bess, Todd and Talulah and loved taking part in sponsored dog walks. In fact, it was very unusual to see Doug out and about around Exmouth without a dog in tow! Doug was a good man who was devoted to his family and to his dogs. Those of us who worked with him regularly over the years will miss his infectious sense of humour and his kindness. We all send our thoughts and sympathy to Meriel and their family.
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Lucky Loki Lovely Loki the lurcher spent 9 long months at the Shelter waiting for his forever home. That translates into 279 days! It was a long wait but finally the perfect family came and found him! Here is news of Loki in his new home in Yeovil: “Just to say that Loki is settling into life and is an absolute joy to have! He is such a lovable boy and a total sofa hound. Although he likes to know where we are, he's now happy to loaf in the sitting room whilst we are in another room, which is nice to see. He has his own bed to retreat to when he wants to and we take this upstairs with us at the end of the evening, where he sleeps at the foot of our bed. He's good as gold throughout the night. He's eating really well and sits beautifully for his meals. In fact, he's very biddable on the whole. We're clicker training quite successfully with him on the lead and he's walked past a number of dogs on the lead with no trouble. The walks where we live are really quiet so it's been a good introduction for him I think. We've found a field to hire for an hour nearby which is dog proof so we're looking forward to letting him have a really good run there in a couple of weeks time and testing out our powers of recall! In the meantime, he races up and down the garden and LOVES playing catch with tennis balls. We'll need to invest in a bulk buy so he has a never-ending supply! We all love him. With best wishes, The Maybury Family.”
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New Homes Required! Great news from our last edition, long stayer Buzz is reserved! All the animals for adoption are on our website: www.rspca-littlevalley.org.uk.
Bubbles
Ellie
Snoop
Heath
Maggie
Jimmy
Tilly Tony & Trevor
Tinks & Nibbles
Tamar
Azure
Joey
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Happy Endings! Flo Rene Artois
& Groot Cass
Malteser & Buttons (were Sakhee & Ahmanet)
Aztec
Linus
Princess with Coco
Ghost
Mavis
Coco (was Noodle)
Muffin, Basil & Pecan
Shandy
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Hector Goes Viral! Hector has spent 500 days in the Shelter now and as he was looking for a forever home with very exact requirements, we decided we needed to go bigger! So we courted publicity and soon Hector had gone viral! He was on BBC Spotlight, ITV Westcountry News, popped into Heart FM in Exeter, online via The Dodo and Ladbible and in papers such as The Sun, Daily Mail, Metro, Daily Mirror and even notched up a very professional performance on This Morning with Eamonn Holmes and Ruth Langsford (Rachel and Kerry helped too!). And the great news is—he is reserved, to a local home after all that!
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Grace Ulricks Grace Ulricks is 102 and a fabulous artist. She is a member of the Friends Through Arts
group in Kingsteignton and recently sold some paintings and held a draw in aid of Little Valley and raised a fantastic £207. Suzanne Pugh, General Manager, and Julie Thomas, Receptionist, went down to see Grace to say thank you and present her with an amazing cake and a certificate. Thank you Grace!
Volunteer Long Service Awards A group of volunteers from our Budleigh shop recently came up to the Shelter to receive long-service awards. They’ve all notched up quite a few years’ service between them and we couldn’t keep the Budleigh shop going without them. Thank you for your loyal service. The volunteers are Christine Hooking, Dave Pollock, Diana Budgen, Carol Brett, Diane Mills and Gordon Gooding—here pictured with Cliff Marshall, Area Retail Manager; Joe Currey, Social Media/Volunteer Liaison; Jo Evans, Shelter Manager; Phil Brush, Treasurer and Suzanne Pugh, General Manager.
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Shop News Firstly, I would like to wish all of our loyal customers/donors and social media followers a very Happy New Year! Thank you for your support during 2018 and we hope that you will continue to support our shops and, therefore, the Shelter during 2019 and beyond. Retail has been going through a very difficult time recently and we have seen a downturn in retail revenue accordingly! All of the major retailers are feeling the ‘pinch’ recording losses not seen in retail for some time. The charity sector is no different, and we at Little Valley have seen two of our shops close during 2018 even with the great price points we have our products placed at. People are just not shopping the way they used to and it is believed to be a generational point of difference, with millennials shopping for ‘experiences’ and not product, unlike their parents.
Online shopping has moved on in terms of speed and availability which has put pressure on high street retailing and hence the fall in sales. With vision, during 2018, Little Valley moved into the online arena with our own Ebay shop—you can find this at: www.ebay.co.uk/usr/littlevalleyanimalshelter.
Please feel free to visit our online shop, which has a wide choice of products at great prices, and all profits go to keeping the Shelter running. All of our online products have been kindly donated by our supporters and we cannot thank you enough. Our shop teams are only too happy to receive donations of your pre-loved items. So, our hopes for 2019 are that we continue to see growth in our online shop alongside successful shops on the high street. All of the money raised goes to the welfare of the animals in our care at the Shelter. We had over 1,000 animals in our care during the year in 2018! Once again, Happy New Year and we look forward to seeing you in our shops or online?
Some Items from our Ebay shop—Calvin Klein bag (left), Kardashian shoes (centre)
Japanese Satsuma Meiji Period teapot (right)
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Kennel Rebuild Update We are now using the first new kennel block of the rebuild—yay! The puppy block is nearly finished and we hope it will be handed over to us later this month. Photos show building work on the next block where our old B and C blocks used to be. We’ve even had a large crane on site! Slow progress but we’re getting there!
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Please consider sponsoring a dog kennel, cat pen or rabbit run for as little as £3 a month through our Safe Haven scheme. An application form can be found on our website.
If you shop online, please use Easyfundraising to help us raise even more money. Lots of well known retailers are on there and it’s free to register. Sign up at: www.easyfundraising.org.uk/causes/rspcalittlevalley
Join the Pets at Home VIP Club to get great discounts. Select your home store as Exeter, Exmouth, Torquay or Newton Abbot and you can opt for Little Valley as your chosen charity so we can receive benefits as you shop! Register at: http://vip.petsathome.com
Giveacar raises money for UK charities by scrapping and selling old cars. They provide a
nationwide FREE service which: - Arranges the collection of the vehicle from your home; - Depending on its age and condition, recycles it at an authorised facility or sends it to auction. To arrange donation of a car visit www.giveacar.co.uk or call 020 7736 4242, quoting “RSPCA Little Valley Animal Shelter” as your chosen charity.
A legacy to us will provide crucial funds. We could not carry on our work without such gener-ous support. Please visit our website to find out more about leaving a legacy to us.
We have wishlists for our dogs, cats and small animals. They list lots of items that our animals really like, such as treats and toys. You will need an Amazon account to do this but it’s really easy to set up and it’s free. Go to www.amazon.co.uk. Log into your Amazon account and type into the search box “RSPCA Little Valley Wishlist” and our wishlists will come up! It’s a great way to help out the animals in our care!
You can now donate to us whilst you shop via Amazon Smile! Go to
https://smile.amazon.co.uk, login to your Amazon account. Under "Or pick your own charitable or-ganisation" type 'RSPCA Little Valley', click "Search" then “Select” and you are set up. Any eligible purchases you make when you go via Amazon Smile will benefit us!
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Canine Remedial Massage A complementary therapy which uses the ma-
nipulation of soft tissue to promote the physio-
logical and psychological well-being of dogs
— regardless of age, size or breed. Veterinary
consent is required prior to treatment.
For further information or to request a consent form, contact Linda Rogers ITEC Dip ICAT Tel: 07732 688383. Email: [email protected]
THE FAMILY MASSAGE CENTRE Established 1994
Annie Samuels (Hons)a holistic approach to health care and diet Deep tissue massage, sports injury therapy, Hopi ear candle treatment, aromatherapy 1 hour to 3 hour treatments from £30 to £70 Available 7 days a week (9.30am to 5.30pm) by appointment only Gift vouchers available for cash or cheque only 7 Piazza Terracina (river basin), Haven Road, Exeter EX2 8GT Tel: 01392 203182 (answerphone) | Email: [email protected]
St Davids Station Exeter EX4 4NT Tel: 01392 271221 [email protected] [email protected]
St David's Veterinary Hospital is a modern, well equipped veterinary hospital in the city of Exeter. As a Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS) certified Veterinary Hospital our outstanding facilities include digital X-ray and ultrasonography, a fully equipped laboratory, air-conditioned kennels and operating theatres, along with 24 hour on-site vet and nursing care. All of this ensures your pet will receive first class modern treatment.
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Events 2019
The kennel rebuild is still ongoing at the Shelter and will be for most of this year, which means that events at the Shelter will be limited once again. But here is a list of events that our Exmouth/Budleigh Supporters Group have organised. They managed to raise a fantastic £7,656 last year—thank you for your support! All events are also on our website and our Facebook page.
Wednesday 13 March—Coffee Morning (10am-12pm, free entry) Venue: Littlemead Methodist Church Hall, Roundhouse Lane, Exmouth EX8 3BZ
Wednesday 10 April—Coffee Morning (10am-12pm, free entry) Venue: Littlemead Methodist Church Hall, Roundhouse Lane, Exmouth EX8 3BZ
Wednesday 22 May—Coffee Morning (10am-12pm, free entry) Venue: Littlemead Methodist Church Hall, Roundhouse Lane, Exmouth EX8 3BZ
Saturday 1 June—Bumper Sale (10am-12pm, free entry) Venue: Budleigh Salterton Public Hall, Station Road, Budleigh Salterton Stalls include bric-a-brac, toys, linen, plants, cakes, ladies clothing/accessories, books, jewellery, refreshments and raffle.
Wednesday 19 June—Coffee Morning (10am-12pm, free entry) Venue: Littlemead Methodist Church Hall, Roundhouse Lane, Exmouth EX8 3BZ
Saturday 6 July—Exmouth Flag Day
Wednesday 17 July—Coffee Morning (10am-12pm, free entry) Venue: Littlemead Methodist Church Hall, Roundhouse Lane, Exmouth EX8 3BZ
Saturday 27 July—Summer Sale (10am-12pm, 50p entry) Venue: All Saints Church Hall, 2 Church Road, Exmouth EX8 1RZ Stalls include bric-a-brac, toys, linen, cakes, ladies clothing/accessories, books, jewellery, refreshments and raffle.
Wednesday 14 August—Coffee Morning (10am-12pm, free entry) Venue: Littlemead Methodist Church Hall, Roundhouse Lane, Exmouth EX8 3BZ
Wednesday 11 September—Coffee Morning (10am-12pm, free entry) Venue: Littlemead Methodist Church Hall, Roundhouse Lane, Exmouth EX8 3BZ
Saturday 21 September—Budleigh SaltertonFlag Day
Wednesday 9 October—Coffee Morning (10am-12pm, free entry) Venue: Littlemead Methodist Church Hall, Roundhouse Lane, Exmouth EX8 3BZ
Wednesday 6 November—Coffee Morning (10am-12pm, free entry) Venue: Littlemead Methodist Church Hall, Roundhouse Lane, Exmouth EX8 3BZ
Saturday 23 November—Christmas Fayre (10am-12pm, 50p entry) Venue: All Saints Church Hall, 2 Church Road, Exmouth EX8 1RZ Stalls include cakes, bric-a-brac, toys, books, jewellery, linen, gifts, cards, Xmas decorations, refreshments and raffle.
