Having had the opportunity to discuss animal welfare issues with both BC SPCA President Rick Sargent and Acting CEO Craig Daniell, I've come to this conclusion: Mr. Daniell may very well truly understand the root causes of companion animal suffering and pet overpopulation. I suspect he does, but he is certainly not at liberty to share this with a perceived critic such as myself, when the Society he is employed by is part of the problem. And while I believe that Mr. Sargent is a well-meaning, animal loving person, I am disturbed at the lack of comprehension he has shown of the reasons behind animal suffering in this province. I am wondering now just how much information the Board is given about what goes on in SPCA facilities. I am wondering just what kind of grasp does the Board have on the whole problem of why SPCA facilities continue to be stuffed full of animals, year after year after year.
It's unfortunate that Mr. Sargent lives in Victoria. Because the branch he is most familiar with serves a fairly well educated urban population, he likely does not see firsthand the horror of unlimited surrender. Crowded filthy cages, stressed out, sick animals, high kill rates. And more animals piling in every day, dumped by people who seek a convenient solution to something they know they don't have to take responsibility for because the SPCA will....
How can I tell when a person like Mr. Sargent has no understanding how evil unlimited surrender is? Well, their argument always goes like this: "If the SPCA doesn't take them, they'll be dumped on a country road somewhere. Or shot. Or drowned."
Well, where I live, that already happens. It happens A LOT. It happens everywhere in BC already, especially in the more rural areas, but also in urban areas with depressed economies and undereducated citizens. And it happens already despite the fact that the SPCA offers unlimited surrender. So I simply don't buy that argument.
Who takes advantage of unlimited surrender? Generally, people who should have known better than to get an animal in the first place. We live in an easy come easy go wasteful society. We value convenience over anything else in our busy lives. When the animal we brought home on a whim (and this month it could likely be on an SPCA -induced whim, having seen a few of their pet pushing advertisements lately) becomes time consuming and inconvienient, well how convenient of that nice SPCA to provide us with a convenient solution. That was so easy, we might just do it again next year. It didn't hurt at all!
This is why the SPCA has become a pet recycling franchise instead of a society to prevent cruelty. This is why the SPCA is forced to keep animals in crowded stressful conditions that destroy them both mentally and physically. This is why the SPCA has to have a tool like CAMP to excuse the killing of animals it either should never have taken in the first place (virtually unsellable dogs like pit bulls, or large, obviously dangerous dogs that it knows it will have to kill), or animals that came into the facility cheerful and trusting, but who are unable to cope with the trauma of being separated from home and family, and rot away in SPCA cells for so long that they become damaged goods, and are unable to pass CAMP assessments and are killed. Unlimited surrender is the root cause of all the suffering and killing at SPCAs.
The SPCA does not have to kill. It does not have to crowd and stress and make animals sick. But the only way to achieve this is to limit its intake to a number of animals it can humanely care for. Then it could truly call its branches "shelters", because the branches would be sheltering, not recycling or killing. And only then would its branches be living up to accepted standards of animal mangement practise, as outlined by the Canadian Veterinary Medical Association, standards which the BC SPCA itself purports to use as its guidelines when investigating cruelty cases.
It might be worthwhile for the Board to show up unannounced at some of the branches in this province that still have high kill rates. Or at some of the branches with substandard facilities. The Board needs to walk through these facilities and witness for themselves the sheer numbers of terrified adult cats, the barking kennel crazy hordes of large mixed breed dogs, shepherd crosses, pit bull crosses, rotweiller crosses...dogs and cats that are going nowhere but to their deaths, because there is nowhere for them to go. Dogs and cats the SPCA should not have agreed to take in the first place, knowing it would only have to make them suffer in crowded cages, then kill them.
That is the evil of unlimited surrender, and that is what I think the Board has not witnessed firsthand.
Unlimited surrender makes for full to bursting branches, highly stressed and sick animals, and high kill rates. A limited intake policy allows the SPCA to truly shelter. And as for those they turn away- well, it's time their "guardians" took responsibility and did their own dirty work. Maybe they'll think twice about buying another animal. Maybe the market will start to shrink with less buyers, maybe less people will breed. Maybe. It all has to start somewhere, and limiting surrender at SPCA facilities seems like a good place to begin.
Jennifer Dickson
President, Okanagan Animal Welfare Foundation