In Edmonton, the SPCA only seized sick dogs. The dogs' owner can be charged and convicted and be prohibited from owning dogs again, but in the meanwhile, the dogs, who are much happier where they are than in little concrete prison cells at an SPCA, can be monitored and perhaps rehomed. That is how BC's Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act was plainly written and the SPCA manual confirm this. The Act was meant to put the animals' welfare first; it was meant to prevent cruelty, not inflict it.

In BC, the SPCA has sometimes seized every dog, killing some or most of them, calling that a "rescue". Why does the SPCA often take all the animals at a seizure, including the healthy?

Aside from big seizures making a big impression (especially in the media), the BC SPCA tells judges that the number of animals it seized justifies the huge sums of money it demands from the owners for its "seizure costs" (even when the SPCA sold or killed the animals after the seizure).

By seizing healthy animals it has animals that can be sold. Then the SPCA collects two ways - as well as collecting from the original owner for "seizure costs" it also collects from the new owner when the animal is sold. And historically it has killed animals that won't sell quickly or would incur rehabilitation or vet expenses, but that is never reported to the media.

AAS fought for years for the SPCA to start enforcing the PCA Act after it had refused for so long and let unconscionable suffering continue for years, but little did we suspect that we would then have to fight the SPCA to make it stop killing animals it seizes.

On the left, these groomed, healthy, expensive little purebred were seized by the SPCA. On the right, this dog was left by the SPCA on its chain, his skin and ears inflamed, shaking in cold winter rains, his hair falling out. He is only one of thousands...