In 1998, AAS went to the new manager of the Vancouver City Pound and offered to make the VCP no kill by taking everyone of its dogs on its hit list, the unwanted big cross breeds, dogs with risky behaviour, the old, the sick, the frightened and the ugly. The pound immediately announced it was no-kill and the Vancouver SPCA got a lot of angry calls from donators wanting to know why it wasn't no-kill too. A lot of them threatened to withdraw their donations. The SPCA has a huge dog disposal contracting business, maybe as many as 100 contracts around the province (it won't say). It wouldn't surprise us if is the largest dog control/disposal business in the world. It works by being paid to ticket dog owners for infractions like being off leash, seizing dangerous dogs, and impounding stray dogs. All the dogs have to be disposed of someway, and if they are not claimed by their owners or sold to a new owner, they are killed.

The Vancouver City pound was not ever (and is not now) no-kill. It reserved the right to kill any dog it wanted to and when AAS objected, it got rid of AAS. And then it went on to boast in the media over and over that it was Canada's first no-kill pound. And the media refused to stop repeating this lie, even when given clear evidence that it was a lie.

Why does it matter so much that pounds not be allowed to lie this way? It is because as long as the public believes that their pound is not killing any dogs, the public sees no need to support attempts to stop the reason most pound dogs are killed - that they are used-up yard/guard dogs, big breeds so ruined that the only thing that can be done with these poor, worn out souls is kill them.