"While Fraser said the (Victoria)SPCA "hadn't done anything wrong", he also said the service was less than ideal, and a recent court application saw the organization arguing against the Town's effort to have a dog that it deemed dangerous destroyed. They were working on our behalf, yet they were on the other side of the fence in this case," said Fraser. "It did create a bit of a conflict."

Two interesting things are happening in this statement: one that the SPCA finally chose animal welfare over animal control and argued with its paymasters. Good for them, that is their mandate, that is why people donate to them. For fifty years the SPCA controlled dogs by killing all of the unwanted ones. They were paid to do it and they did. This is a heartening new development. AAS pointed out years ago that there was an inherent and corrupting conflict in doing both animal welfare and animal control, and in the end the one that provides the secure income - control - wins out, and animal welfare becomes a scam.

Second: now the SPCA must use the PCA Act to control dog disposal companies like Mr Hughes' Coastal Animal Control Services by frequent inspections, seizures, and prosecutions, for any incidents of Mr Hughes' pounds causing distress. And if the PCA Act is ineffective, then the SPCA must have it amended to include Poundkeeping Standards.

Of course its own pounds are among the most terrible, so first it will have to stop causing so much distress to its own poor prisoners.