----- Original Message -----
From: Jen and Brian
To: Kim Capri ; Craig Daniell
Sent: Friday, May 23, 2003 9:52 PM
Subject: puppy mill dogs and the future of the BC SPCA

May 23, 2003

Kim Capri
Chief Operating Officer, BC SPCA

Craig Daniell
General Manager, Cruelty Investigations, BC SPCA

Dear Kim and Craig

I received an email on May 22 from your Interior Regional Manager, Bob Busch, regarding the decision to euthanize 2 of the Baker-Pyke dogs at Kamloops SPCA on May 5. You may have read this email already, as many people received it. If not, I have copied it below.

I found Mr. Busch's email offensive and insulting to my intelligence. It is exactly the type of placating form letter that I specifically requested I not receive when I wrote to you, Kim, on May 15, regarding my concerns as to how the puppy mill dogs are being handled at the branch level. You have not responded to my email, so I can only assume that either you did not receive it, or that you had nothing to say. Frankly, I prefer silence to being patronized.

If by chance you did not receive my email of May 15, I have copied it below.

Kim, you wrote in an email to Judy Stone on May 20, 2003, that Regional Managers are "people who love animals, but also people who understand big picture thinking". As long as the BC SPCA's "big picture" includes unlimited surrender and pound contracts, it will have to kill. I understand that. What I do not understand is why the SPCA chose to kill dogs that so many experienced and reliable people offered to foster and adopt. If it were pit bulls, or rottweilers, or some other breed capable of being truly dangerous to humans, I could understand. But these were two frightened little dogs whom the SPCA wouldn't even TRY in a foster home. They were sentenced without a trial.

As I write this, more terrified little dogs shiver away in their SPCA cells while offers to foster go ignored.
Life in a cage is soul destroying. It will turn orange zone dogs into red zone dogs. If the SPCA does not provide remedial therapy in foster homes for these dogs before assessing them under CAMP, many will fail. This is not what I wanted for these dogs when I gave my information to Craig. It was my worst fear.

I'm sorry Craig, but I cannot continue to provide you with information regarding the whereabouts of puppy mills. I will no longer help the SPCA to seize animals whose fate rests in the hands of a Society that may unfairly and unnecessarily kill them. It was foolish of me to have believed that branch staff and managers, and CAMP assessors could be trusted to give these dogs a fair chance, especially in the wake of the slaughter of the Beaverdell dogs.

Mr. Busch's email contains one sentence of truth: he states that "the BC SPCA is forced to make very difficult animal welfare decisions on a daily basis."

Craig I know you have a good understanding of animal welfare, so I think you'll understand what I mean when I tell you that I feel your talents are wasted on the BC SPCA as long as it continues to practise the intake and outtake policies that come with pound contracts and unlimited surrender. These are the reasons that the BC SPCA is forced to make "difficult animal welfare decisions" instead of rehabilitating animals. But I do hope you stay on, because I have to hope that one day I will actually be able to refer to SPCA facilities as "shelters". I hope that one day the BC SPCA will have modified its intake policy such that its outtake policy does not mean unnecessary killing. When that happens, I'll tell you where the Baker-Pykes are.

Kim, I hope you can direct the SPCA to this end. This can't happen overnight, or even over a few years. But what can start now is honesty. If honesty were SPCA policy, Mr. Busch would not have sent such an insincere email to those of us on the outside who tried to save two dogs from the SPCA.

Sincerely,

Jen Dickson
Okanagan Animal Welfare Foundation