Why wasn't Austin put in a foster home? He was only a puppy and would have done just fine in the proper environment. AAS has rehabilitated so many dogs just like Austin. Read his initial bio. He was trusting and willing but the SPCA's horrible "shelter" and the SPCA's lack of people who know how to encourage healthy behaviour and discourage unhealthy behaviour broke his spirit and encouraged negative behaviour. This is another case of the SPCA itself making an animal sick and then blaming the sickness on the animal's death - in other words blaming the victim.

The BC SPCA's assessment protocols are being implememented by people who either know nothing about dogs or by people whose background is in dog control. These are the wrong people to rehabilitate dogs.

If the SPCA would get out of pound contracting and change its open admissions policy then it could afford to do right by the animals it takes. But the SPCA chose quantity over quality a long time ago. There are going to be hundreds, perhaps thousands, more "Austins", killed under the justification of bad behaviour which as been determined by an ill-chosen SPCA "assessor" until the SPCA cleans its hands of dog-disposal and open admissions policies.

The "rescuer" who brought Austin to the Victoria SPCA was right to be worried about what would happen to him there. The rescuer should have kept Austin and made sure he had a happy ending or left him on his chain which could not have been worse than an SPCA prison cell, surrounded by other barking and crying dogs, constantly changing strangers, and then death.

The phoney "state of the art assessment tool" proves that the SPCA cannot be trusted to do what donators trust and pay it to do: speak for those who cannot speak for themselves.