The SPCA claims to the media to be working with rescue groups. Just who does it mean?

One of the SPCA's many re-imaging sleight-of-hands is its claim that it works with independent dog rescue groups. And in fact, the one person at the SPCA that we know truly had animals' best interests at heart, Cindy Soules, was permitted last year to begin to network with a few selected purebred rescue groups, allowing them to get dogs of their breed out of the body and soul-destroying SPCA cages quickly and at minimal cost.

AAS was so pleased when it learned of Ms Soules initiative. For decades the SPCA would let dogs languish for months until sold rather than let any of the competition have any of their marketable product (the SPCA's own term for its animals). In fact, the SPCA has killed unsold purebred dogs rather than let the competition save their lives.

Then last year the SPCA changed policy on Ms Soules and the rescue groups. They could no longer have the really marketable ones, only the old or sick or ones with personality disorders. So "working with rescue" was only briefly about what is best for dogs, only briefly about animal welfare, only briefly about getting dogs out of the horror of SPCA holding pens that are commonly diseased and always psychologically damaging.

But the claim of "working with rescue" went on being useful for p.r. purposes. The media is only too willing to uncritically (and lazily) repeat SPCA press releases and so the public believes that the SPCA is "working with rescue" just as it believes there really was a moratorium on killing and just as it believes that SPCA blow-out sales of dogs is about animal welfare.

Just how phoney it was is illustrated by the case of the Kamloops SPCA preferring to kill puppymill-seized cocker spaniels rather than give them to Cocker Rescue, one of the groups it was claiming to "work with". (See this story at http://www.animaladvocates.com/cgi-bin/newsroom.pl/read/2564)

Ms Soules was one of SPCA head Office staff who were fired earlier this year by the new CEO, which tells us not to expect real animal welfare policies anytime soon from either the Board of Directors or the CEO of the BC SPCA.

We believe that the SPCA was careful which groups it would "work with", choosing only those that would keep quiet and not rock the boat, but after the revised policy was known and especially after Ms Soules was fired, some of them got quite cross and critical about the program and stopped being discreet.

That was purebred. What about "working with" all breed rescue? We know that one group that AAS respects for its high standards refused to work with the SPCA. (AAS was not asked it goes without saying, and we certainly don't wonder at that.)

But the SPCA did start to send big cross-breed dogs to Big Dog rescue, a Langley group that had only just started. AAS heard many worrisome things about Big Dog, but we reserved judgement as we had not seen it for ourselves.

That changed in July this year when we made good our promise to Kito, a chained dog that we had attempted to help. (See Kito's story at http://www.animaladvocates.com/happy-endings-kito.htm

Thanks to the SPCA he ended up at Big Dog Rescue instead of with AAS. We went to Big Dog Rescue to see Kito and we can only say that it is better than any SPCA because the dogs are not isolated in cells: they are kept in a large pen and we were told that they have access to the grassy yard at times, and that some of the dogs 'live" with one of the family members.

But the similarities to the SPCA are greater than the differences. Big Dog Rescue took the $150 we paid for Kito without checking our yard. In fact, the home check they did seemed a brief formality, comprising having us sign their agreement, taking the money, and took about three minutes. (They did not ever provide a copy of the agreement, nor a receipt for the money, nor have they ever done a phone call back to see how he is.)

Kito's ear was still badly infected even though they claimed to have taken him to their vet and had it treated. And he was still extremely thin, about 15 lbs underweight.

We had our vet request Kito's records from Big Dog's vet, but they said they had no records of a dog of that name and would not send the records anyway as Big Dog owed them money - another similarity with the SPCA which we have been told is very slow to pay its vet bills.

So, no real home checks, no medical treatment, and a poor record of bill payment. We think we see why these two organizations get along.