abused dog rescue

Animal Advocates is a small rescue and advocacy humane society in Vancouver BC, Canada. We do not have a shelter, instead we use warm, loving, experienced volunteer foster homes, rehabilitators, and vets. We do not rehome dogs who have owners who can and should do that. With few exceptions, we only save the most difficult dogs, those who have been mistreated for a long time, who need our expertise and compassion and our refusal to kill to save money or because the dog has many problems to overcome.  AAS ethical standards are simple and straightforward but a lot of work: Every rescued dog is given the exact same love and care that I give my own dogs.  Anything less can't be morally justified.  To weigh the costs, to kill, or to rehome without paying to make the dog well in body and spirit is not true animal welfare: it's moving as much product as fast as possible and to demand money for unwell product is a business, not a calling. 

In the early 1990s AAS had been rescuing feral cats for some years, not realizing that there even were chained dogs or that they were ignored by the BC SPCA and were left to rot (sometimes literally) and die on their chains, but knowing there were many cat rescuers, we switched to helping dog rescuers... real dog rescuers.

After a decade of rescuing hundreds of dogs we realized that the SPCA would go on pretending to distraught animal-lovers that the PCA Act (the BC Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act) was inadequate to help chained dogs. This we knew was absolutely untrue and to confirm it, we paid for legal opinion from one of Vancouver's largest law firms.  It was clear that the SPCA chose to immorally contract with municipalities all over BC, perhaps more than one hundred, to be the paid dog catcher / dog disposer (and disposer of cats and all other pets, if paid).  Decade after decade the BC SPCA made millions of dollars a year by killing hundreds of thousands of pets a year. But no one was paying it to prevent cruelty, so it didn't. (Read about the SPCA's pet disposal contracting business empire)

I had been a contractor for many years and immediately recognized that the BC SPCA was a pet disposer contractor, disguised as a humane society. Hoping to make the SPCA prevent cruelty by asking municipalities to pay it to help chained dogs, I spent several years making "Humane Dog Bylaw" presentations to many municipalities. (Read bylaws).  When councillors saw the shocking photos of dogs in their communities who had been ignored by their contractor, the SPCA, they adopted our bylaws. Sadly, the SPCA still told people it didn't have the power to help chained dogs.

We wrote a report for the government of BC asking for the PCA Act to specify regulations for chained dogs and again the SPCA thwarted that attempt.  (Read how it did that)