T’Mielle’s RSPCA vocation is giving voice to those who cannot speak

How many neglected, abused, starved, and beaten animals have been rescued by the RSPCA over the past 150 years?

 T’Mielle White may not know — because she’s at the frontline in helping find homes for hundreds of rescued, surrendered, abandoned, and unwanted local pets each year in Orange district.

 Like most RSPCA staffers, she sees her position as local shelter supervisor as more vocation than career with her love of animals drawing her to her organisation.

 “I first saw the job in the paper when they were looking for a casual position I had previously been working at a boarding kennel and thought that the RSPCA would be a better fit for me,” she explained.

 Originally from Lake Macquarie from a family of pet lovers, the RSPCA, she added, was right up her street.

 “Everyone in our family — grandparents, aunts, cousins — they all had pets.

 “So did my family, we had pet dogs, mice, hermit crabs, fish, cats, rabbits, guinea pigs. We did have a budgie as well… but never a tortoise, I wish!

 “Animals are very caring and always there for you and, I thought, I’d give back,” she said.

 The job, she adds, is about a commitment to compassion, rather than cushy pay and conditions.

 “We don’t get a lot of benefits like public holidays, Christmas and Easter, because the animals need us.

 “We also don’t get holidays off in the snow, we still have to come to work because the animals still need looking-after.”

 Her account is part of a series highlighting the animal welfare group’s first century-and-a-half titled “Stories Behind the Scars”.

 T’Mielle, though, says that she prefers to see the good rather than the bad in her daily duties — the kindness rather than the cruelty and indifference.

 “We do sometimes see those things, and that’s quite unfortunate, but the adoptions, the happy endings, outweigh all that,” she said.

 “The RSPCA is made-up of people helping animals which have no voice. We want to give a voice to the voiceless and to tell their stories.”

 Like many of the caring professions where monetary reward isn’t the motivation, women form nine out of her 10-person crew.

 “I’m doing it because I want to be here and doing what I want to do. It’s good to be able to make a difference,” she said.

 One of the toughest parts of the job, as for most of her team, she says, is not taking her work home with her! 

 “It is hard, a lot of our staff both foster and adopt a lot of animals… I have two cats myself,” she confessed.

 As one of our largest not-for-profits, volunteers play a central role in the success of the local shelter with new recruits always a welcome addition.

 “We have a range of volunteers who help-out from time-to time. They can do a variety of work: reception, answering calls, some come and spend time with the dogs, maintenance… gardening type of things,” she explained.

 With 21 cat kennels and 44 for dogs, she, said, surprisingly, that canines make-up a majority of their work with more than one animal at the shelter (on average) finding a home each day, with dogs often the toughest to get permanent homes for.

 “Last year, in all of 2020, we adopted-out 403 animals,” she said, adding that homing animals is not simply a matter of handing-over pets as people make requests.

 “We carry-out behavioural assessments and we may say, ‘this dog can’t go to a house with children’, or ‘this must be the only dog in the house,” she explained.

 “Because of this, we do find some animals take a long-time to find homes for, particularly those with restrictions.”

 Despite a commonly-held view that the RSPCA animal shelter at 71 William Street acts as a Council facility with funding from Local Government, the group relies on most of their funds from the public who value their work.

 “A lot of our funding for the RSPCA is from donations, not from government… we’re an independent not-for-profit,” T’Mielle said.

 “But we did receive $210,000 in funding from the State Government in 2021, which we’ll be using for renovation of the shelter. We want to upgrade the cattery building and create some isolation wards,” she added.

 Empathy, not money, though, she says, is what the RSPCA is really about.  

 “Each and every one of us has a real passion for animals and their welfare is what we’re really focusing on,” T’Mielle concluded.