This is a complicated and 'good' question. I think one has to remember that anyone working at the SPCA, or pound, or any shelter should be a person who loves animals. To have a job killing animals is incredibly demoralizing, stressful and cruel. So, what kind of person kills these animals; either someone who is hardhearted, or someone who has been hardened by the situation of pet overpopulation. Either way, it is not fair to hand someone this grusome job.

There are, as mentioned, many solutions and one has to be proactive and creative to start to really address pet overpopulation. This is what SPCA critics have forever been calling for: some real solutions to too many dogs and cats that no one wants instead of the 'bandaid' solution of just throwing animals into jail cells and adopting (or shall I say, selling) animals out willy-nilly.

There is making sure that every single animal that leaves the SPCA premise is spayed or neutered, no matter where the SPCA is, or how old the animals.

There is not taking every single animal in, and there is a need for litter licenses for dogs...people need to have a license to breed animals.

There needs to be more 'government' on how animals are bred and sold because this free-for-all right now is clearly not working.

I am also interested with the latest article in the Sun, recently posted here, about how animals end up euthanized due to unrealistic expectations on the part of owners. It leads me to think that people should have to attend a short 'pet adoption' session put on by SPCA volunteers and/or staff before being allowed to adopt. In my years of volunteering with dogs and people I can clearly see that this is indeed a problem (Sue Sternberg's book on Shelter Dogs has a whole chapter on this problem that she calls the 'Lassie Syndrome' -- too many people watch Lassie movies, wanting a Lassie with absolutely no understanding of the hours and hours put into training for a 'Lassie' to be produced.)

These are some of the possible answers to a very real problem...let's hope some SPCAs will start to be proactive and address some of these issues.