In the Spring of 2003, then BC SPCA President Rick Sargent and I had a conversation about implementing a mobile spay/neuter van to serve remote communties in BC. Rick was very excited about it, and I agreed that it certainly was one of the SPCA's brighter ideas.

Where is that van?

Instead of slugging away at the unglamorous task of sterilizing BC's surplus dogs and cats, the SPCA instead opted to sort and move more product faster. Instead of stemming the tide, it is streaming the flow, with shiny new vans and feel-good media pablum.

SPCA facilities are chronically crowded because of the SPCA's dog-catching contracts and the SPCA's unlimited intake policy. So where will all the dogs from the Interior and the North be put once they arrive in the Lower Mainland? The SPCA has thought of that! The solution is in its own Manual Of Orders (MOO) written by the Animal Welfare Manager. After reading her orders, you may well ask, What the hell kind of Animal Welfare is the lady preaching? The first person to answer, "That is not ANY kind of animal welfare", gets the grand prize of 10 cats and a 12 year-old rottie cross with attitude and bad skin.

The SPCA's answer to how to make room is in the MOO. In short: The SPCA sorts its dog product into three categories using a test.
1. Red dogs are losers and are killed.
2. Orange dogs are iffy - they might sell with a bit of money spent on them, but they might never. So they are just sort of floating stock until they are bought or until the room they are taking up is needed by a nice, desirable dog. If someone buys an orange zone dog, good, if no one does, well they can be killed if, as the manual says, there are 'not reasonably available resources'. Not enough available resources means not enough money to rehabilitate a dog. But lots of money to send ad-covered vans back and forth, shuffling product, and lots of money for lawyers to sue AAS. Or, and this is very slick Managing indeed, orange zone dogs can be killed to make room for the premium product, which is...
3. Green zone dogs. In fact, Ms Animal Welfare Manager says you have to kill them! And Ms Animal Welfare manager does not like to be crossed!

So there you are - Bob's your uncle! No problemo! Lots of room. Just get those staff trained in the needle trade, beavering away at making room for all those Northen Premium Green Label dogs by killing the dispensible Orange Label dogs. The SPCA's own written words are their worst enemy and one of our best defences.

From the BC SPCA's own dog-sorting manual, "CAMP Phase One"

Page 40: "Orange zone animals with treatable conditions can only be kept in the shelter when the resources are not needed by green zone animals living in overcrowded shelters."

Page 41: "The receiving shelter cannot refuse green zone animals living in overcrowded shelters unless the Branch Manager states that they are already full of green zone adoptable animals. Orange zone animals (on hold) that cannot be adopted by average pet guardians must be euthanized to enable equal access to resources for all adoptable animals."

Page 45: "During Phase One many orange zone dogs may be euthanized because of 'not reasonably available resources' or because green zone dogs need these resources..."

The October 7th Vancouver Sun and Province photos of SPCA Chief Animal Protection Officer Shawn Eccles and Petcetera CEO Dan Urbani clutching Yorkshire terriers in front of the new sort n' shuffle vans made me feel ill. Yorkies are marketable product. They are highly sellable. One could sell them to anyone, anywhere. They don't need to come to the coast to be purchased by someone. But come they did, and how many orange zone dogs took the walk down the hall to oblivion to make room for them?

Who dies to make way for better product? A few zany young shepherd crosses who are going slowly kennel crazy in their SPCA cells, potentially great young dogs , sinking deeper into the orange zone quagmire with no remediation? Or the nice old lab that no one wants because he has bad skin and failing eyesight? Or the really sweet rottie who just doesn't sell because he's overstocked - there's just too many exactly like him?

Some of them could die to make way for the Yorkies according the SPCA's own manual of orders.

So to say that the Pet Express will save thousands of lives needs to be qualified: whose lives exactly? Well, Green Label's lives of course. The Orange Label's lives are in a bit of a pickle though. Orange Zone dogs' lives may be lost, culled by the SPCA's other sorting tool, the "assessment test".

The only honest way to save thousands of lives is to spay and neuter. Rick Sargent knew this. What part doesn't Craig Daniell get?