The BC SPCA may be getting out of pound-contracting (dog disposal) after fifty years of expanding this business at the expense of animal welfare. There is a lot of controversy around this issue and a lot of pound-contracting SPCA employees trying to stop the SPCA from dropping contracting. Maybe the SPCA will hang onto its "presence" in some of the 32 branches in BC by having contracts, but will force more humane treatment of the animals on those staff who are steeped in the "prison guard culture" of pound contracting. But probably the latter can't be done - a pound contract absolutely requires all the horrors that we know of because of the fixed price of the contract and the bottom-line impetus. Municipal pounds have a better chance of being made to be more humane as they are not bottom-line driven (though budget constraints are very limiting also, but at least a body of citizens large enough to be reckoned with and vocal enough to garner a lot of public support can go to its mayor and council and force more money to be put into animal control). The big difference between a municipality contracting out animal control to the SPCA and doing it itself, is that it was pointless to increase the contract price because the increased money just went into the SPCA's coffers, not into shelter and care of animal improvements, whereas a municipality can spend money directly on increased staff, training, better facilities, etc.

AAS has so much evidence that the SPCAs with contracts are the SPCAs that are a blight on the name of animal welfare: dirty, animal-killing, run by rude staff and tyrannical managers, resisting improvements, allowing animals in their "care" to be sick and injured, resenting volunteers and life-saving programs, using cheap and cruel method of killing, and many other horrors. We don't believe the SPCA's hands can ever be clean as long as it contracts to do dog-disposal, and we think it now realizes that. The example of reform was set in San Francisco where the first change the SF SPCA made was to stop contracting with the City of San Francisco to dispose of dogs, and is being emulated all over the US as other SPCAs which want to reform also drop their contracts. This is not rocket science, and those who are fighting to force the SPCA to keep contracting - the pound-contracting employees and their PR group, are doomed in our opinion. At least we fervently hope so. And all those employees who are trying to stop humane reform at the BC SPCA? There will still be a job for you if you can change too.

Tell us what your take on this issue is. Is there a way for the SPCA to be a humane contractor?