ok, me & my friend were in our town centre yesterday, my friend needed to go to the bank & outside there was a pigeon all puffed up just sitting on the step, it let me sit right next to it so i knew there was something wrong with it (on closer inspection it had a tow missing) anyway, i wanted to ring the rspca but my friend ( a so called animal lover) said they wouldn't help it because it was classed as vermin.i rang them anyway & they said they would send somebody to take a look. anyway, we made sure it was away from immediate danger & carried on with our shopping. when we had finished we arranged to get picked up, but 1/2 hour b4 we had 2 go the rspca rang & said they were on te way so we waited with the pigeon 4 as long as we could but when we left they hadn't arrived yet - i wanted to stay but i had work & no other way of getting there apart from the lift we were getting.anyway, now i feel terrible that i didn't wait until it got collected. do u think i should ring the rspca back 2 see what happened 2 it? nobody else stopped to help it & i really wish i'd stayed.do you think i did the right thing? its on my conscience :sick:

At least you stopped to help! This happened to me a while ago - very similar to your story, pigeon all puffed up, not moving - called the RSPCA and THREE HOURS LATER (grrr) they came out. I'd gone home in the meantime but went back every hour to see if they were there, eventually they called me and when I got there, they were in the exact spot I'd directed them to... 'my' pigeon had a yeast infection - tricho something or other - so he couldn't eat and was too weak to fly, so had puffed up against the cold. They took him to a bird sanctuary in Swansea for antibiotics then released him a week later. Whenever I call the RSPCA I always leave my number, at least then the person 'on call' can get you talk to you directly.

So - I guess as long as you gave them reasonable directions, they will have found the pigeon? Particularly if he wasn't moving. It's horrible when it's on your conscience though - I saw a pigeon yesterday with string wrapped loosely round it's foot, I went to get a box to catch him so I could take the string off, but when I got back he'd disappeared. So now I'll always wonder!

I love pigeons, and I think it's so sad the way some people treat them. You know they're just feral rock doves? When I was trying to catch my pigeon no-one stopped to help, just looked at me like I was some mad lady and walked past. Pigeon-haters.

:hug:

The thing is, in some places they put those animals down right away. I did something similar when I was younger and that's what the lady said they would do. Mean lady! :stinkeye: