The "assessment test" racket was exposed by AAS beginning in 2002. It is a pound contractor's tool to keep costs down by continuing to kill for space while appearing to be only killing to protect the public. The test is especially necessary for combination pound contractors/animal welfare organizations because the animal welfare arm generates the majority of revenue. And in the age of the internet, when outraged people are recounting their experiences with so-called humane societies and everyone is connecting the dots very publicly, a "scientific" excuse became necessary as an answer to angry donators and the media.
Assessment testing was adopted by the BC SPCA in 2002 after the bad P.R. (loss of donations) that resulted from Vancouver SPCA volunteers going to the media with stories of how the SPCA was killing nice, but unsold, dogs to make room for more sellable dogs (Read the story at http://www.cyabc.ca/about1.htm ) This is another example of SPCA policy driven by its critics and by the threat of loss of money - not driven by compassion or real animal welfare ethics.
The BC SPCA's test culls out hard to sell dogs and labels them as "unadoptable", their behaviour being "scientifically" determined to be so bad that they have to be killed to protect the public. The test makes no bones about this, actually instructing SPCA staff to kill "iffy" dogs to make room for more sellable dogs.
AAS hears almost weekly of a dog the SPCA has sold as "safe" that is seriously biting, so the test fails to protect the public as well as killing nice dogs. And we hear of dogs that staff know just need a bit of rehabilitation, being failed and ordered killed. Some staff were so sickened of these kill orders that many quit and in Delta, they stole puppy Cheech to prevent him being killed with a trumped-up "failure". (Cheech story and video >> http://www.animaladvocates.com/cheech/index.htm )
Fifty years of shameful behaviour, never changing until the loss of revenue warrants change, and then mostly window-dressing change. In the 1950's the SPCA was shamed in the media over the sale of dogs to UBC for research into making a policy against it. In the 1980's it was shamed in the media for wilfully inflicting torture on dogs it was killing with the electrothanator after it had refused repeated requests from its own Board to stop using it, but it went on using it in some branches for several years more and it went on killing in gas boxes until the early 2000's when really bad P.R. (again) forced it to get rid of its cheap gas boxes. In 2002 it said it would stop killing dogs for space, but it did go on, only now it had a test that made it okay.
Here we are in 2006 and just last month the SPCA was forced to cancel a fundraiser that was boiling live crabs. At first it claimed that it couldn't tell a branch what to do and that anyway, crabs don't feel pain. Only after an international petition and outrage, instigated by Sea Shepherd Society's Paul Watson, was the crab-boil cancelled. (Read more >> http://animaladvocates.com/cgi-bin/newsroom.pl/read/13668 )
As for the numbers of cats and rabbits still being killed, it won't say. (Read more about the electrothanator >> http://www.animaladvocates.com/cgi-bin/newsroom.pl/noframes/read/8634 )
More reading >>
The Board of the BC SPCA is both Deaf and Dumb: AAS will speak in court for those who cannot speak for themselves >> http://www.animaladvocates.com/cgi-bin/newsroom.pl/noframes/read/7040
Neither of us will be having anything to do with the SPCA anymore after 40 yrs of supporting it >> http://animaladvocates.com/cgi-bin/newsroom.pl/noframes/read/7024
The SPCA were going to kill a 12 lb dog. See Monty's video >> http://www.animaladvocates.com/videos/happy-endings/monty.htm