For ten years, I have been talking to animal lovers, on the phone, at the dog park, in vet's offices, and in the last few years, on the internet. Not a day passes that I am not told by someone why they are angry at the SPCA and why they are never going to donate to it again. Sometimes these people are angry (and enlightened) by the SPCA's ruthless, paid, dog controllers, clearly being anti-dog cops as they patrol for dogs and owners breaking a municipal bylaw by letting a dog run free where it shouldn't or killing a dog that has bitten under extreme provocation, taking the controller's side instead of speaking for the dog. (SPCA ex-President, Rick Sargent, astutely addresses this conflict at "Past BC SPCA President, Rick Sargent, asks the SPCA to clarify its mandate to protect dogs " http://www.animaladvocates.com/cgi-bin/newsroom.pl/read/6735

Sometimes they are angry (and enlightened) by just walking into an SPCA and seeing the lazy, indifferent employees and the grim cells and cages. Sometimes they have discovered how little some SPCAs care if they have a lost pet or not. Or they have said they are coming back tomorrow (the SPCA refuses to take money to hold an animal) to adopt a certain dog or a cat, and returned to find the dog or cat was killed shortly after the SPCA was told it had a home. And not one employee gave a damn.

If I had all day to recount even 1/10th of the stories that prove that the SPCA was in the pet disposal business and did not do any animal welfare, I would do that. Instead I will invite others to tell their stories.

Yesterday's unsought story was a familiar one. Yesterday evening, at the dogs' last outing of the day, I was talking to a man about his dog and dogs in general when he told me apropos of the lawsuit, which everyone knows about, thanks to the SPCA making its stupidity once more a media subject, that he saw a puppy in a black window van parked in the sun and when he finally got the SPCA on the phone, after two calls and over 20 minutes on hold, he was told to call back if the puppy began foaming at the mouth. He then phoned the police who arrived in minutes, broke the van's windows, had the van towed, and drove away with the puppy licking the officer's chin.

I told him that the PCA Act specifically allows the SPCA to do that, and that in general, the police dislike the SPCA as much as anyone because the SPCA keeps making the police do the SPCA's job. We have been told this by police officers for years. There are a lot of police out there, angry at the SPCA because of all the ignored suffering of animals the police see.