In May 2002 the BC SPCA told AAS that the decision to continue or discontinue its dog control/disposal contracting business would be made in October 2002. There is still no official announcement but it is slowly losing its contracts as furious animal lovers in BC go to their mayors and councils and demand a shelter that does not easily kill - in other words a shelter that actually "shelters".
This loss of contracts may be deliberate on the part of the SPCA as a way to free itself of the choke-hold by the animal-disposing SPCA employees' union. And it may be deliberate too as a way to divest itself of the need to kill so many animals, something it can no longer do in secrecy thanks to AAS's Web Mag and NewsRoom messageboard relentlessly exposing the atrocities of years of pet-disposal and attracting reports from more and more animal-lovers who had seen and knew shocking things about the SPCA but in the past had no way to tell what they knew. And recent events seem to be signalling that the SPCA may also be acting out of a desire to truly reform itself and to stop being the official companion animal disposer for BC.
AAS began urging the SPCA to get out of the dog-disposal business several years ago. Our web mag is full of articles on this subject: http://www.animaladvocates.com/spca.htm. Dog control/disposal, when done by an agency that purports to be purely animal-loving, required a great deal of deceit and hypocrisy. It's corrupting, and explains why, at SPCAs that hold dog-control contracts especially, there is so much killing and overcrowding, so many rude, ignorant, hard-nosed employees, some who actually breed and sell animals while being paid to dispose of many thousands of unsellable animals; so much ticketing for minor offences like not having a dog licence (paid animal control) and so little interest in preventing cruelty (animal welfare).
We have been saying for years that the SPCA cannot change as long as it holds dog-control/disposal contracts. It may have more than one hundred throughout the province (it won't tell us the number). These are paid contracts for dog control/disposal and they absolutely required the killing of every dog that is not claimed or sellable.
We said then and we repeat now, that dog control should be done by municipalities and paid for by that municipality's taxpayers. Once the true costs of disposing of so many unwanted cats and dogs is understood by the taxpayer there is hope that the taxpayer may decide that breeding controls are needed - something the SPCA has never asked for and in fact something that the SPCA permitted its own employees to do.
These animal-disposing employees' union is fighting tooth and nail to protect their animal-disposal jobs, but we are certain they are going to lose this fight. The fact that Langley is reviewing the Coquitlam shelter is another nail in their coffin. Try as they might, even using gullible members of the media to unwittingly promote their animal-disposal agenda, and its anonymous messageboard to viciously attack and slash every move on the part of the SPCA to reform itself and stop killing for contracts, these hard-nosed employees are either going to adapt to the new reality of real animal welfare or have to get jobs at some of the vile 19th century prison-style pounds that are still just running animals through the doors, either selling them or killing them, running dirt cheap, bottom line disposal businesses .
It's true that as long as society allows dogs to be bred and sold with no controls, someone has to dispose of the ruined and rejected - but it should not be a Society that claims to love animals. The contradiction is a conflict of interest and leads to the need for all the hypocrisy by the SPCA that has been exposed in the last several years.
Animal control should be done by municipalities so that animal lovers can go directly to their elected officials and complain and make change and so they can see how much money is being spent on what and who. There was no way to do this with the SPCA - it was a Secret Society.
In February of 2000, AAS went to the District of North Vancouver, showed it all our proof of SPCA deceit and barbarity, and asked it to stop contracting with the SPCA and to run its own pound and dog control. We were successful, and in January of 2002 the SPCA was gone and a new humane District shelter was up and running. AAS also was instrumental in urging the City of Coquitlam to do the same.
We don't believe that the SPCA has acted out of true concerns for animals for at least fifty years, but that if it really is getting out of pound contracting, then it may at last be becoming what so many mistakenly thought it was for over 100 years - a Society to prevent cruelty and to promote animal welfare.
The BC SPCA announced recently that employees hired in future will not be allowed to breed and sell animals. One more victory for all animals, for AAS, and for the "new" BC SPCA. See AAS web page: http://www.animaladvocates.com/spca-breeds.htm and posts at: http://www.animaladvocates.com/cgi-bin/newsroom.pl/read/1313 .
The BC SPCA has at last begun seizing neglected animals, prosecuting the abusers instead of waiting until the public forgets and then returning them to the abuser (see the post just below at http://www.animaladvocates.com/cgi-bin/newsroom.pl/read/2175.) But the horrifying debacle of the Kelowna SPCA's handling of the seizure and killing of the Beaverdell dogs will never be allowed to happen again, see posts beginning here: http://www.animaladvocates.com/cgi-bin/newsroom.pl/read/2030, and here: http://www.animaladvocates.com/cgi-bin/newsroom.pl/read/2119 .
The BC SPCA took away the power of the branch managers and presidents to run their own little fiefdoms and so prevent any reform. It will no longer hire employees or directors who breed animals. It has plans to actually do education not just pretend it does. All this is very heartening. It still needs to formally divest itself of dog disposal contracts, and it needs to end its "open surrender" policy which accounts for thousands* of killings of pets a year (see more on "open surrender" at http://www.animaladvocates.com/spca-blame-public.htm).
*See Do the math at http://www.animaladvocates.com/cgi-bin/newsroom.pl/read/2177