From plastic spiders to 'balloon' sheep - RSPCA reveals comic call-outs

Remember the 'big cat' on the loose in Hedge End a few years ago that turned out to be a stuffed toy?

A full scale alert was sparked when a white tiger was seen crouching in a field near the Ageas Bowl cricket ground.

Police marksmen, zoo keepers and a helicopter were scrambled, and the match between South Wiltshire and Hampshire Academy was stopped for 20 minutes.

Now the RSPCA is revealing it's most comic call-outs of 2017.

The Sussex-based charity receives one call every 27 seconds from animal-lovers concerned for a pet or wild animal.

Occasionally, members of the public get it wrong...

...like the several people who called in concerned about a blindfolded horse being transported on the back of a trailer along a motorway.

Suffice it to say the plastic animal was unharmed during transit.

...and a heron, which was spotted 'with a broken leg' sitting on a fence in a back garden. Thankfully, a garden ornament.

Inspectors were called to a field after a call from a farmer whose elderly neighbour was concerned for four ewes who were stuck in the hedgerow.

He said they'd been there for two days.

A delivery man phoned about his concerns for a collie that he'd spotted immobile and covered in frost outside a garden gate.

This abandoned bathtub caused consternation after it was mistaken by several people for a dead horse.

And a terrified woman from Alresford called about a massive spider she'd found under the stairs.

The RSPCA team was mobilised and retrieved the arachnid. The woman's young son later confirmed it was his....