Dog Eat Dog

Have you seen the SSPCA's latest campaign? I've seen it in the press - large adverts too, cold mailings and banner ads on a number of Scottish websites.

Many people I meet have had no idea that the RSPCA does NO work in Scotland, which tallies in with the SSPCA's findings that 70% of people don't know it.

Yet they have Scottish donors, who may assume that giving to help "the nation’s" ROYAL animal charity, means that animals in their neck of the woods are being helped.

But, they of course won’t be. It is the SSPCA that do all the work in Scotland, as the RSPCA won’t step over the border* to help an animal in distress.


*Two things here – 1. In some parts of the Scottish Borders/Northumberland, it’s not easy to know which side of the imaginary line you are on.
And 2. Apparently, they go further than that, or less far as the case seems to be.


The SSPCA claim that the RSPCA have been stealing their donors. Knowingly recruiting Scottish donors, and deliberately targetting them. The RSPCA counter claim that some of the advertising packages they buy include Scottish broadcast – for example TV ads etc, and that in fact all the SSPCA are doing is drawing attention to their own failed marketing. Miaaoow.

Since then, the RSPCA have apparently admitted to taking £1.25million of 'Scottish' donations.

But who will win the Public Opinion war?


Some donors seem to be annoyed to have been misled, (such as Barbara Smith in this article) and the Herald has made donations to the RSPCA to find out how much they do seem to point donations towards Scotland. Not much, it seems,

However, public opinion seems to be against charity campaigns that criticise other charities. Enable’s campaign of a few years back didn’t seem to raise income, but did offend and annoy.

For the cost of this campaign (£100,000), the SSPCA will certainly have got bang for buck – the topic has been debated in a number of places (in Scotland AND England), and it should certainly mean that more people are aware of the situation.

The RSPCA are much larger than the SSPCA, and benefit from TV programmes dedicated to them, so would it have hurt them to contact any donors in Scotland to make sure they knew their donations weren’t going to be used in Scotland? Well, it could have hurt to the tune of £1.5million a year – a lot to a charity of any size, but given this campaign, and the fact it has received so much publicity, will it have cost them more in the longer term? Or will it simply harm trust in both organisations? Will the Blue Cross or someone else, perhaps local animal charities and rehoming centres, start seeing an increase in donations in the meantime? Only time will tell, it seems.

Finally, according to the Chief Exec of the SSPCA, the response to them has been overwhelmingly positive.

But in the long run, will either or both have lost out? Or will Scottish donors to the RSPCA just be happy that animals in general are being helped? After all, there are Scottie Dogs, Westies and Yorkies north and south of the border.