When an animal agency takes in more animals than it has money or resources for and then kills the ones that are the biggest drain on the money and the resources (as is done to most animals that catch kennel diseases such as upper respiratory syndrome in cats (head colds); distemper and ringworm in cats and dogs, and parvo in dogs) the agency is unmistakeably trading quality for quantity.

Substituting quality for the practical limitations of quantity is excused by those agencies' defenders on the grounds that, "there just isn't enough money or enough homes, so we have no choice but to kill them". Actually, the agencies and their defenders always call this killing "euthanasia", but it isn't of course - not even close. Defenders also like to say they had to kill the animals "unwillingly", as they did when defending killing the Chilliwack SPCA puppies for ringworm, as though someone were holding a gun to their heads and they had no choice.

Defenders of the ringworm-puppies killing excuse the killing on the grounds that there were no other options, but there are always options if one is prepared to not give up searching and to make a sacrifice if necessary. They bleat that there are too many animals and not enough homes. This is a justification that has been used by the SPCA for many decades. And then society in general and irresponsible pet owners specifically are always blamed.

This argument slides greasily away from the true questions. Can killing animals not fatally sick or injured ever be animal welfare? And if it isn't (and it is not) then what is it?

We have said this so many times before but it bears repeating: Quality spends money and quantity makes money.

Blaming everyone but themselves has effectively confused the media and the general public for so long that it is still being used all the time. But it never confuses real animal welfarists and more and more of them are forming and more and more of the public instinctively prefer those groups' no-kill policies, practices, and selflessness.

Here is a question that the public and the media have been able to get their heads around: How can any animal welfare organization justify killing puppies and kittens when it sells sexually intact dogs and cats?

The animal welfare/animal disposal industry's days of killing animals for treatable illness and behaviour problems are numbered. There are other solutions and the real animal welfare network finds and implements them every day.