The current policy of not allowing the public to view animals in the sick room should be addressed. Certain potential adoptees who demonstrate the willingness and desire to care for a sick animal can provide better care for that animal than is possible at the shelter. Especially when one considers that many of the animals that become sick are killed because there is not enough space in the sick room.
This conflicts with the SPCA Code of Ethics: Point 1) subparagraph 1
Solution: First it is important to acknowledge that most of the animals that are adopted succumb to illness very soon after arriving at their new home. This is due to the stress involved with their stay at the shelter.Thus the argument that sick animals should not be adopted so as not to promote that the SPCA adopts out sick animals is moot as the public is already familiar with the term “SPCA sickness” as a slang for these stress related illness that occur after the adoption. Second we must acknowledge that allowing that allowing the wholesale viewing of animals in the sick room would be a poor choice since it would place these animals under undue stress and risk further contamination. However those patrons who are actively looking to adopt should be allowed to view all the animals that are up for adoption. This may save a sick animal form the suffering of attempting an unlikely recovery at the shelter and the possibility of being put to sleep. This is yet another step to ensure that all possibilities have been explored prior to killing the animal.
Symptoms: Some animals are killed because they succumbed to an illness that could have been cured if they had found a home; others are killed because of space limitations that could have been avoided. Some patrons do not find their ideal companion because that animal was in the sick room at the time.