In order to force the SPCA to reform AAS had to collect the evidence of the SPCA's decades of deceit. That required us to dig deep, connect all the dots and to make a water-tight case that could not be ignored or silenced by lawsuits. That required us to reveal that the SPCA's misuse of animals took a whole willing network of bosses and employees - to show that bad policy needs bad employees to carry it out.

We knew that most of the bad policy was being carried out at SPCAs with pound contracts, but we also knew that the SPCA's pound contracting empire was in expansion mode and one day there would be no SPCAs without a pound contract.

And we knew that even at the branches with no pound contract, the SPCA "open door" surrender policy meant that animals had to be killed in order to make room for more, making it impossible for the branches that were trying to do real animal welfare to turn away animals that they knew they would have to kill because of lack of space or because they knew (in the case of dogs) that the animal was being surrendered because it had been ruined by the owner who was now getting SPCA donators to pay for its disposal.

But we also know that in spite of all these obstacles to real animal welfare that there were some SPCA branches that were struggling to keep honest and go the extra mile for the animals in their care. Branches where volunteers were made to feel welcome and useful, not treated as though they were job-stealing, bleeding-heart fools and time-wasters.

AAS can say absolutely that there is not one SPCA branch that holds a contract to dispose of dogs that we have not heard of this attitude by the employees. The contractual obligation to dispose of unwanted and dangerous dogs absolutely requires killing, and employees who will do this.

AAS has consistently heard good things about the Nanaimo SPCA, run by Lorraine Chiorando, and the Powell River SPCA, run by Audrey Hill - neither of which has contracts to dispose of dogs. We'd love for anyone who has a good word to say about these "true" shelters or any others to post here.
Judy Stone