The kind hearted volunteers who created the Burnaby SPCA's In Memorium page have inadvertently revealed one of the base atrocities that the BC SPCA has long been guilty of: enabling pet dumping.

How dare the BC SPCA maintain an intake policy that requires it to sentence companion animals to a terrifying and soul destroying jail term before death?

The BC SPCA blames irresponsible pet owners for dumping their pets, yet it continues to provide the dumping ground. By maintainig an unlimited surrender policy, the BC SPCA is facilitating the easy abandonment of companion animals by their "guardians", yet it blames these same pet owners for being irresponsible. The BC SPCA has made no effort to make them responsible. It simply facilitates disposal, then redirects the blame.

Why?

Because pet dumping enables the BC SPCA to keep its shelves full with sellable product, and a full "shelter" always looks needy to the prospective donor.

No landfill operators criticize citizens for droppig off garbage. No recycling depots complain that people should consume less.

But the BC SPCA oversees the recycling and disposal of living beings every day by maintaining an unlimited surrender policy, yet it still complains about irresponsible pet owners.

In order to deflect criticism for allowing "surrendered" housepets to rot away a terrified existence in its concrete cells, the BC SPCA chooses to blame an irresponsible public for taking advantage of the pet disposal services that it has chosen to provide.

If the BC SPCA were truly honest and animal serving, it would have refused to accept Amra, and countless dogs like her, who cannot comprehend the terror of being abandoned to a strange cell, and who only become overwhelmed with despair, and are killed by the very society who claims to speak for them.

By maintaining an unlimited surrender policy, the BC SPCA speaks for no one but itself. Unlimited surrender allows the BC SPCA to feed off an unlimited supply of free product. There is no mercy for the product that is emotionally destroyed by being sentenced to a jail cell in an SPCA facility. That product is ultimately assessed as damaged, and is killed, as was the case with poor Amra, and thousands like her.

Unlimited surrender is more despicable than pound contracting. It allows the BC SPCA to look full, busy, and in desperate need of donations to a naive and unwitting public. It allows a fresh choice of freely acquired product for sale every week at SPCA facilities. It allows the suppliers of that product an easy and guilt-free dumping ground.
Worst of all, it allows terrifying and unholy ends to the lives of thousands of dogs and cats who are abandoned and killed at SPCA facilities.

The stories retold on the Burnaby SPCA's In Memorium webpage are a harsh testimony to the evils of unlimited surrender. The BC SPCA has chosen to facilitate this policy of enabling pet dumping, yet it profits from the cute furry face in the cage and has the unmitigated gall to criticize its supplier.

How very very sad that the poor dogs on this Burnaby SPCA webpage suffered so terribly and were killed by the BC SPCA. But how criminal and unforgiveable, that the BC SPCA continues to maintain policies like unlimited surrender that force it to be the abuser and the killer. And how dare it redirect the blame for, and ask for donations to help with, an atrocity of its own creation.

Jennifer Dickson
Okanagan Animal Welfare Foundation
Vernon B.C.