What a bind the SPCA finds itself in, one of many binds it is in. The term no-kill is a winner but the SPCA can't use it because the SPCA has an unlimited surrender policy (Ms Stone says they accept in all animals), and it has dog control contracts, so it has to kill animals when it inevitably gets full. To do that, without leaving itself open to the accusation of killing for space, it says the animal was not adoptable. Not being adoptable is a death sentence in SPCA parlance. Who decides which animals are unadoptable (not treatable, not rehabilitatable)? The judge and the executioner are one and the same - the SPCA.

To do this cheaply, the SPCA trains staff in killing by injection. Killing - not euthanasia; anyone who repeats the SPCA's use of the word euthanasia needs to look the word up in a dictionary. For that matter, anyone who calls an SPCA facility that kills treatable animals needs to look up the meaning of the word shelter.

The many little organizations that are no-kill, that treat and rehabilitate instead of kill, do not cherry-pick, as the Victoria SPCA manager accuses them of. Quite the contrary - all the groups that AAS knows and works with, and there are many, actually take the most damaged, physically and emotionally, and spend the money, the time, and the work, to make the animal well. Many of them sneak dogs and cats out of SPCAs to save them from the SPCA when they know that an animal's days are numbered. Staff of vets who do some of the SPCA's killing, are still, after all these years, sneaking cats home to be taken care of and rehomed.

These little no-kill organizations have been gaining adherents and credibility at what to the SPCA must be an alarming rate. Insulting them, saying there is no such thing as no-kill, saying that they pick and choose, saying that the SPCA is more humane because it kills animals that it has made nuts, won't prevent the deterioration of the SPCA's reputation. Only not killing and telling the truth will do that.