"Most people would think that any programme that clears cats out of SPCA facilities is worthwhile."

That is the heart of the problem; that most people do support increasing sales over ethical animal welfare; that so many people don't even recognize a sales pitch when they see one; that so many people buy into pet-recycling business plans; that so many people accept the SPCA's threat that it will have to kill some if they aren't sold; that so many people think selling faster is an ethical solution to the evil of pet dumping.

The fact that 1800 pet-recycling business are all imitating a successful marketing campaign does not mean it is animal welfare, but it does mean that it is a highly successful marketing campaign. Studies done by a pet food supplier do not mean the findings are credible and should be used to defend the sales campaign. And it is troubling that the company used to give credibility to the campaign is Iams, whose testing cruelty has been documented by PETA.

As the pet disposal/recycling industry has been exposed and vilified on the internet and now in the media, the industry has upped its sales pitches as a way to stay in the lucrative used-pet business while avoiding the massive killing that was causing it so much negative P.R. and cutting into its bottom line. Real animal welfare groups, who won't lower themselves to gimmicks like Christmas marketing, have sprung up everywhere and are siphoning off donations. The SPCA is following the industry's trend with this campaign, as well as it's T.V. campaign that promoted impulse buying of dogs as lifestyle accessories, and with its partnership with Petcetera, the world's biggest retailer of pet accessories and caged pets - rabbits, rodents, reptiles and birds. All are ways to increase sales of used pets - unwanted pets that are provided for free by a public that the SPCA has taught that it can get rid of pets any time it wants. What is the Nanaimo SPCA, or the BC SPCA, doing to discourage a culture of pet surrender?

"I am aware that the SPCA used to oppose Christmas season adoptions. It would appear that this was not based on facts and that no good reason exists for opposing them."

For decades the SPCA had a slogan, "A Pet is Not For Christmas, it is For Life". It had this slogan because, like everyone who does animal rehoming, it knew that Christmas is a particularity cruel time for pets, with people dumping their pets at SPCAs and pounds rather than pay board, and other people looking for a really cheap but exciting gift, particularly for children. The slogan was based on fact - a fact that real animal welfarists are only too familiar with. But the SPCA has watched the industry trends and modernized its marketing, beginning with now-fired CEO Douglas Brimacombe and increased by the current management of the BC SPCA.

Our information, and our source is credible, is that home checks are not made by the Nanaimo SPCA consistently, not even frequently, and that some, if not many, cats and dogs are returned. We also are told that there are not-infrequent outbreaks of disease at the Nanaimo SPCA and no purchaser of a sick animal will get any assistance in paying vet bills from the SPCA. Real animal welfare does not wash its hands of an animal once it has been sold.

"Home for the Holidays" is a sales slogan dressed up as animal welfare. The new trend in the pet disposal/recycling industry is to kill less, sell more, but neither killing or selling is animal welfare. This is another appallingly bad example by the BC SPCA to set for the public to imitate, and it is not animal welfare.

Quantity or quality - which is animal welfare?

The success of "clearing animals out" is used to justify the failures of some of the sales; in other words, that quantity justifies a lack of quality.

The old tried-and-true bugbear of "more abandonments" if the SPCA discourages pet surrender is always raised in this discussion.

The cycle of pet-getting and pet-abandonment, whether the pet is abandoned at a pound, an SPCA, or on the side of the road, will never end as long as it is assisted and encouraged. If women started to drop their babies by the side of the road, is the solution to build more orphanages? If more orphanages were built, would more, or less, women abandon their babies at the side of the road? The correct answer is that if society only assists an ill, the ill increases. Think welfare, drug addiction, homelessness, prostitution, unemployment. All increase as the assistance increases. Soon assistance is being provided, not just for the truly needy, but for many who were not, but in the course of being assisted, become truly needy. There are more than enough studies going back many decades that show how the need expands to fill the offer, and how a network of jobs and power - government and thousands of spin-off organizations - are created to service the problems - not the solutions - that are as large or larger than the numbers of the needy. Ills then becomes so entrenched that they become almost implacable. The SPCA has been in this industry for a very long time and must know what part it plays in entrenching the ill. It has been criticized for decades for not addressing root causes and yet it chooses to continue to be part of the problem by choosing to encourage pet abandonment and choosing to increase sales campaigns.

Rabbits in cages so small that they can barely move much less hop, at the BC SPCA's business partner, Petcetera (Grandview and Rupert in Vancouver, taken today)