One of the criticisms I have made of the BC SPCA is that it profits from the sale of puppies instead of spending money on control of breeding legislation. One of my own dogs came from a litter of pups that was raised and sold by the Vernon SPCA, and whose neglected mother was given back to the owner, unspayed, and with no agreement to have her spayed in the future. (And no, I did not buy my pup from the SPCA - she was the one pup in the litter that for some reason was thrown by someone from a moving car in a garbage bag on Christmas Eve, at two weeks old - her mom and siblings were dumped at the SPCA over the Christmas holidays. The pups were sold in January, and mom was returned by the SPCA to the dumping owners, at no charge, and unspayed, in spite of my numerous offers to adopt her).

So here we are, three years later, and the SPCA is incriminating itself, yet again, on its own website. We have three incriminations with regard to poor Two Bits:

1. That the SPCA still takes and sells litters of pups (mostly from Reserves) with full knowledge of who the producers are without offering the owners to have their dogs sterilized for free, as do all the small animal welfare groups: "2 Bits has fathered many litters that we have taken in"

2. That the SPCA is aware of countless neglected dogs leading lonely, sick, and dangerous lives, yet it does nothing proactively to stop the neglect (educational advertising and demands for stronger municipal bylaws, for example), especially if it is a large breed (a.k.a. hard to sell) dog: "2 Bits has lead a sorted [sic] life. He has mostly been left to fend for himself, and wandered from home to home looking for his next meal. He looks older than he really is, probably because he hasn't been taken care of properly".

3. That the SPCA still has in its employ people who have absolutely no concept of what companion animals need to be emotionally happy, and thus still advertises high energy, intelligent, large breed dogs as being best suited to a bloody farm. The old "we need to find him a farm" story is one of the most despicable betrayals of man's best friend the dog, and the SPCA uses it shamelessly. Anyone who has an ounce of knowledge about dogs knows that dogs are more social than people, and are miserable if left alone, outside, while the rest of the family is in the house. Sadly, only those with unmeasured compassion ensure that they place dogs in loving homes where they will be included as members of the family, not dumped outside and left to roam like livestock. I have criticized the SPCA time and again for its callous attitude to the future welfare of the dogs it processes. Two Bits' bio tells me that nothing has changed at the SPCA: "His ideal home would be an acreage with lots of room for him to explore, and he would love another dog to keep him company." Newsflash SPCA - one outside dog plus one outside dog does not equal a happy outside dog family. One outside dog plus one outside dog equals two lonely bored outside dogs. And no, no amount of barnyard children's book scenery (the cows and chickens) changes this sad story. In a nutshell, dogs are time consuming, not space consuming. They want our companionship, not our property.

These are the kinds of things I have been criticizing the SPCA for many years now. On Oct. 21st I will be present, at the SPCA's demand, and at a loss of my wages, for court ordered mediation, all because I insist on pointing these things out, with the undying hope that the SPCA will learn from criticism how to do its job better. (That is called democratic freedom of speech.) But, as I have said before on this board, as long as I am still reading things like this on the SPCA's own website, I don't know what there is to mediate.