SPCA double speak: justifying returning the Chilliwack Puppy Mill dogs

The SPCA returned ten severely neglected dogs to a puppy mill in Chilliwack on Friday, July 25th, two and a half months after seizing them.

In the Coast Reporter, Eileen Drever, BC SPCA Senior Animal Protection Officer, who originally made the seizure, justifies this on the grounds that the dogs' physical condition was never really bad, it was just the dogs' environment that was really bad, and the environment has now been improved. “We have to send them back. But we would not be sending them back into those same conditions,” said Drever,

Drever said something very different at the time she made the seizure:
'The dogs were kept in small, filthy cages Drever said, and several were suffering from different types of illnesses. Also, while all had food and water available to them, there was hardly any water. "And if there was water, it was very little and very, very dirty", Drever said. '

And this statement from the SPCA's own vet:

'“These dogs had reached a degree of distress that needed to be relieved right away,” says Dr. Steinebach. Three of the animals, two female basenjis and a male Chihuahua, were in such poor shape, they were not released from hospital until May 16. “One of the basenjis and the Chihuahua had such badly-infected and abscessed teeth and gums, that after the teeth were removed, you could see through to the sinuses,” says Dr. Steinebach. “Also, the Chihuahua’s jaw had fractured from the infection. Five dogs were tested and found to have hookworms, tapeworms, fleas, dermatitis, and diarrhea,” says Dr. Steinebach.'

That was then - when Drever was making an appeal for donations to help pay the expenses. Here is what Drever says now: From the Coast Reporter: "Drever said they were not starving nor suffering from a variety of illnesses, as has been suggested."

Drever also said that the SPCA never said it would pursue a custody order (which would mean the SPCA could refuse to return the dogs). But the foster people in Sechelt were all told by the Sechelt SPCA that they may be fostering for two years which could only happen if the SPCA did get a custody order.

Thanks to the internet, the SPCA is never going to get away with this double-speak again.