I am the treasurer of a very small non-profit animal welfare group ( Voice of Concern for Animal Life or VOCAL )in Victoria.

A couple of weeks ago, a friend of mine offered to foster a mother cat & her 2 kittens, then 3 weeks old, for the SPCA here in Victoria & I offered to help her as she lives only 2 blocks away & I love kittens!

After a few days, we both noticed that neither mom or babies seemed very well & my friend took them back to the SPCA who then sent her & cats to Elk Lake Veterinary Hospital, who does work for the Victoria SPCA. Mom & babies were diagnosed with feline distemper & quarantined. Sadly, one of the kittens died that afternoon. (This was on Wednesday.)

We called Elk Lake several times a day to check on the cats & by Friday, it looked as if they would both survive. Also on Friday, my friend was told that we needed to find another foster home for them & that they could be released!

We drove out to the SPCA on Saturday morning to try to find out what was going on. The woman we spoke to there, (I'll call her Susan, not her real name) called Elk Lake while we were in her office. We could sense that something was wrong & I asked Susan if the problem was money & she nodded "yes". I said that VOCAL would pay $100.00 to keep the cats there a litle longer & this seemed to solve the problem. We then spent some time trying to figure out if it was safe for the cats to return to my friend's place & after a lot of investigation, we were told it would be ok.

My problems with what occured are many...

1.Those cats did not get distemper from my friend's home. The SPCA should NEVER have fostered those animals if there was any suspicion that they might have distemper. My friend has other cats but luckily had the good sense & a spare room to keep them separate from her own animals.

2. I know the SPCA is understaffed but if they want to have a good fostering program, they have to keep in touch with the people who foster these animals for them. In the few days that my friend fostered these cats, the SPCA did not call once to make sure things were going well. When I adopt out animals from VOCAL, I keep in close touch with the new " parents" because I want to make sure both people & animals are well & happy.

3. Compared to VOCAL, the SPCA is rich! At present, VOCAL has $1100.00 in the bank & yet we spent $100.00 of this so that mom & baby could stay at Elk Lake for a few more days. The SPCA should have paid for this! To have those cats stay at Elk Lake for only 3 days when they had distemper is very irresponsible.

4. Distemper is a nasty virus. Infected cats can shed the virus in their feces for up to 6 weeks. My friend will not be able to foster for the SPCA for at least 6 months after we find new homes for these cats. She will also have to completely disinfect the room they are staying in... & at her own expense.

The good news in all this is that Madeline ( mom) & Hero ( her kitten) are doing just fine. We will do our utmost to find them great homes when Hero is a little older. It would be a wonderful thing to have an SPCA that really works well & of which we could all be proud. Sadly, we've got a long way to go.

Yours truly,
Diana Leeming