Thank you, indeed, Sandra, for the great idea! Every time I pass one of those distressing displays in a supermarket I cringe...we could begin a campaign to liberate dozens of them ourselves. I wonder, however, if this approach to rescue could backfire - what if the stores decide they need to bring in even more victims because they are selling well?

Reminds me of the situation with the SPCA: from my personal experiences with the SPCA, and from years of conversations with rescue groups who actually save many animals from the SPCA, hundreds of small struggling individuals and rescue groups step in and do the job. We put out tons of effort and our own money, while the SPCA gets over $20 million dollars a year and has a massive p.r. department that churns out daily press releases like a factory conveyor belt. Does the SPCA give credit where credit is due? How often does it cherry-pick who it "rescues" as it did in Chilliwack, taking the young chained dog of a desirable breed and leaving the older chained Rottie cross for a neighbour to rescue and for AAS to pay the rehabilitation bills. In my opinion, the old mutt was the lucky one because no one knows what became of the young dog the SPCA took. As far as anyone in the alternative rescue network knows, there is close to zero ethical rehoming of animals by the SPCA: few if any home checks or follow-ups with offers of help with problems. I'd like to know if the SPCA sells yard dogs, dogs that the purchaser declares will live in a yard most of the time? Although the SPCA makes statements that dogs shouldn't live in yards, does it sell them? If there's a rehabilitation program, I'd like to know exactly what it is. There is no way to find out these things as the SPCA does not answer my questions.

Sometimes the SPCA is even given credit for a small group's rescue which means that the multi-million dollar SPCA gets donations for something it hasn't done and the small group, who is doing true, ethical rescue, gets to pay the bills, sometimes in the thousands.

And round and round we go, while the crabs and critters pay the ultimate price.

In my opinion the SPCA should have told the reporter that it wasn't involved in this story and made sure it didn't get any undeserved credit. http://www.bclocalnews.com/okanagan_similkameen/pentictonwesternnews/news/36705619.html

Ben, the dog the SPCA left behind