All of us who rescue dogs from death or uncertain fates at SPCAs and pounds should stop using the animal control/disposal industry word "euthanasia" for the killing of healthy or treatable animals. That decent word, with other decent words, has been deliberately bastardized to mean something it does not and cannot mean. All of us who rescue animals from places that are threatening to kill them, should not help to disguise this by using the same misleading words that the industry has used for decades to disguise what it does. I do not blame Summerland/Penticton Animal Control if it has to kill dogs; it only has the space and resources that it is given the money for by the municipalities it contracts with; it does not get donations and it does not pretend to be an animal welfare agency; it is just an animal control agency trying not to kill if possible. But I do blame everyone who persists in using all these trade euphemisms:

Euthanasia: This word has been bastardized the most egregiously by almost all animal control agencies or any agencies with unlimited intake policies. If a hospital were to make space for more people by killing the sickest, the oldest, or the least lovable, would anyone call that "euthanasia"? Of course not. There would be public outrage and charges laid. But the pet control/disposal industry has used the word for decades and everyone parrots it for them, including real animal rescuers (who ought to know better), and the media. It's time to stop assisting the pet control/disposal industry in this deception. It's killing. Call it killing if you want to it to stop.

Shelter: If any human shelter killed some of the "sheltered" would anyone go on calling it a shelter? Of course not. This is another trick word that the pet control/disposal industry has got away with bastardizing so successfully that even real animal rescuers call these places with cages and cells and possible death, "shelters". It's time to stop assisting this industry with its P.R.

Adoption: If any human agency were to hand out babies to people without checking their homes, would anyone go on calling that adoptions? Of course not. There would be public outrage. It's time that real rescuers and rehomers stop helping the pet control/disposal industry in its deceptive use of decent, kindly words.

We do not euthanize any adoptable animals: The industry has a long list of "unadoptable" reasons to kill, including:

(1) deterioration of the animal's physical and mental health due to being kept locked up in tiny spaces

(2) treatable physical conditions, even easily treatable ones such as rotten teeth

(3) treatable physical conditions such as ringworm, skin conditions, ear and eye infections, simple injuries, colds and diarrhea

(4) timidity

(5) fear

(6) aggression in dogs -- the industry has developed a "scientific test" that "proves" a dog is aggressive, which permits the facility to kill dogs on the grounds of a duty to protect the public. Animal control agencies do have that duty and are paid to protect the public from animals; for animal welfare agencies to contract to do this is a conflict of interest, from which arises the need to use animal welfare words to disguise animal control and disposal

(7) being feral (cats)

(8) lack of resources -- this one is the most invidious of all. It seems so reasonable. And it is reasonable for animal control/disposal agencies whose budgets are almost always very limited and which do not get donations for animal welfare. But "lack of resources" is deceptive when used by animal welfare agencies. To intake animals when it is known that there are no resources for them and to kill them on that ground is something that all the tiny real no-kill rescue agencies will not do. They will not take an animal knowing that they may kill it. If they take an animal into their care, they find the resources to save it. Intake/kill encourages and entrenches the idea of easy disposal of pets.

The pet population control agencies have not been able to explain away the killing of many small animals such as rabbits and rats; creatures that so far have fallen under the radar of the general animal-loving public.

From a recent WatchDog post: "...it most certainly is not, and cannot be, “euthanasia.” It’s population control killing."