These alternative groups are the SPCA's competition, directly created by the fact that the SPCA kills animals, even healthy ones. Many of the founders of the alternative groups were SPCA volunteers at one time who got so angry at the killing that they set up their own organizations.
The animals they rehome are from people who say they are desperate because they won't take their pet to an SPCA. What does that tell you about an alleged animal welfare organization? Killing is the reason the SPCA is failing. Until it stops killing, its downward slide - into a financial hole and into animal welfare history - won't halt.
These alternative groups are getting much of the money that used to "belong" to the SPCA. They are getting donations and bequests, the two biggest sources of any charity's revenue.
The SPCA kills animals if they get sick, it kills them even if they might be sick; it kills dogs on specious "behavioural" grounds; it kills dogs and cats that have grown depressed or angry in its soul-destroying prison cells; it kills to make space for more animals; it kills "dangerous" dogs under contracts - and it calls this killing, animal welfare.
That won't wash anymore. The tide has turned. Pound contracts reveal the SPCA's anti-animal side and the public sees this. Mass killings, like the Beaverdell killings in Kelowna, have so angered the SPCA's core supporters in these places that support has seriously dwindled. Once thriving SPCAs are on the ropes. There are many reasons, but the root cause of the SPCA's demise is the SPCA's easy killing.
The public is increasingly turning away from the SPCA and to real animal welfare organizations. One day the SPCA will be a bit player instead of the leader it had the chance to be.