Kelowna SPCA manager Russ Forand is doing damage control over the revelations of the killing of so many dogs "rescued" by the SPCA from Gaston Lapointe, a backyard breeder in Beaverdell BC, in July 2002.

The latest and biggest fire storm of all is the allegation that the latest batch of dogs to be killed were stabbed in the heart. But with the help of the media Mr Forand has managed to dismiss all the legitimate concerns of volunteers by making it sound as though the SPCA has been accused by a lunatic of using a knife. No one but perhaps Mr Forand used the word knife.

Stab with a knife - stab with a needle - both phrases are in common usage. The person who reported that the SPCA killed the dogs by stabbing them did not use the word knife. It appears that it was most likely a needle.

In the Kelowna Capital News, Feb 7/03, http://www.kelownacapnews.com/archive/2003/02/07/stories/8229_full.html, reporter Marshall Jones wrote of angry SPCA volunteers, " Another has accused staff of stabbing the dogs with knives."

Where did Mr Jones get the word knife from? Not from the person who accused the SPCA of stabbing the dogs in the heart. Did Mr Jones make up that word or did he hear it from someone at the SPCA?

There's been a lot of fires for Mr Forand to put out. Here are some of the facts. The fact that most of the 53 dogs have been killed just as Mr Lapointe said they would be. The fact that the SPCA permitted some of those dogs to get pregnant while at the SPCA and then sold the pups, just like a breeder. The fact that the dogs were kept for months in cells instead of being placed in foster homes where, since many were young, they would have quickly civilized. The fact that they were then assessed as unrehabilitatable by SPCA "experts" brought in from Vancouver. The fact that volunteers were permitted to walk these dogs and interact with them without supervision, and who described many of the dogs as docile and friendly, and yet when it came time to kill them, the dogs were branded by the SPCA as vicious and aggressive. The fact that they were killed by SPCA staff instead of a vet who would have been able to find a vein for a humane death. The fact that the procedure called "cardiac puncture" is painful even if the heart is not missed, and slow agony if the heart is missed, flooding the chest cavity with Euthanyl.

One can only hope that someone in the media will want to get to the bottom of this, not help the SPCA to cover it up.

As a matter of interest - killing dogs and then telling the media it was done because the dogs were aggressive, even after volunteers have had free access to them, is a familiar SPCA ploy. In January 2002, it did just this at the Vancouver SPCA when it killed six dogs. Volunteers went to the media and told the truth. http://www.animaladvocates.com/spca-six-dogs.htm

The media should be speaking for those who cannot speak for themselves, not speaking for the SPCA. We can only hope that the media will begin to apply its duty to impartiality as required by the BC Press Council and do its homework on the Beaverdell dogs.