Diane's worries are shared by millions of animal -lovers everywhere. As well-meaning as they are, they are what protect big business pet disposal Societies from scrutiny of their business because it looks so much like unlimited surrender is the best of a bad lot of choices. There are other choices, as Ms Bessler just so clearly named, and which AAS has been saying for years, but they require an ability to think outside the box and that can be hard to do when the image of animals abandoned by roadsides, and other "worse" ends, are invoked.

The SPCA has very cleverly exploited this for decades. It has shifted one hundred percent of the blame onto "irresponsible" pet owners, and gullible people have not questioned that there must be a dump for irresponsible pet owners to dump at and that there must be something in it for the dump or it wouldn't be in the pet-dumping business.

The SPCA has said that it hates to do all this killing, but someone has to do it. Given that the SPCA has never condemned pet dumping, or tried to control pet breeding and selling, then Yes, someone has to do it - but the second half of that statement is never questioned by the public... should it be the SPCA that does it? Should the Society mandated to protect animals from harm be killing thousands a year? And does easy disposal encourage a throwaway culture?

Simply put - if one accepts that two wrongs cannot make a right, and that you cannot stop what you hate by continuing to do it, then you are forced to look for solutions that do not play into the wrong and do not assist what you hate.

Making what the SPCA does even more wrong are the cheap facilities in which it carries on its business, where animals suffer severe psychological and even physical neglect. If the SPCA's "shelters" are not proof to animal-lovers of an animal-business focus rather than an animal-welfare focus, then probably nothing is.

To see this problem for what it is, one must think in business terms - how is disposal an integral part of the whole pet owning industry, the breeding, selling, buying, and disposing of goods? And one must ask oneself - has the SPCA capitalized on this business? AAS believes it has - that easy disposal provides the product - for free - that oils the SPCA machine - lots of fresh product to sell and full "shelters" that attract millions of dollars in donations from people who do not realize that the SPCA disposes of unsold product by killing it, or who do not understand that this is not the only, or even the most humane, solution.

Even if the SPCA were to bulldoze all its grim, 19th century, soul-destroying "shelters" and replace them with state of the art, animal friendly shelters, but does not bulldoze its unlimited surrender policy, it will still kill thousands of animals a year because the supply exceeds the demand for its product. And the supply will never lessen as long as it is so easy to get rid of an unwanted pet.

The only ethical solution is to make pet disposal the unpleasant and financial responsibility of pet owners, to make them either find their pet a new owner or have it killed themselves. Once this fact becomes a part of society's consciousness, then fewer people will obtain a pet with so little thought about what to do with it when it's no longer wanted.

The fear that there will be a huge increase in the number of pets abandoned if the SPCA doesn't continue its unlimited surrender policy is a moot point: AAS and other rescuers know that people already move out and leave their pets behind, and others dump puppies in kittens in garbage bins or throw them out of cars. The SPCA's job is to prosecute cruel abandonment, as Ms Bessler pointed out.

Every desk at every SPCA should have a sign - "Killing is not an option - find another solution". Only if the SPCA admits responsibility for its part in all the easy abandonment of pets and stops its unlimited surrender policy, will anything change.

Will the SPCA take responsibility? It appears not from recent announcements that it is staying in the lucrative pet disposal business, although it is getting out of unprofitable and unpopular dog control enforcement.

Changing the ethics of pet ownership will be a long, slow process, but it will not be a process at all as long as animal-lovers continue to support and defend or not understand the SPCA's pet disposal business.

Read more posts: Expert opinion on the evils of unlimited surrender: http://www.animaladvocates.com/cgi-bin/admin_config.pl/read/2665

SPCA shelters cause psychological and physical "distress", even "critical distress" in animals: http://www.animaladvocates.com/cgi-bin/admin_config.pl/read/2696