Understanding the distinction between adopting and selling is critical to understanding what the SPCA does wrong, so that it can be made to do what is right.

Real animal welfarists make adoptions - the SPCA sells animals. The proof is here:

Real animal welfarists and rehomers get all an animal's medical needs attended to before rehoming the animal.
If an animal gets sick while in a real animal welfarist's care, it is made well before rehoming it.

The SPCA sells sick animals (if it doesn't kill them).

Real animal welfarists keep an animal for as long as it takes to find the right match, the right new owners, the right home.

The SPCA sells to almost anyone who pays. And if a dog or cat does not sell fast enough, it may be killed (according to the SPCA's own internal documents).

Real animal welfarists carefully and thoroughly screen prospective adoptors.

The SPCA does a cursory screening before selling an animal.

Real animal welfarists do home checks, meeting every member of the family to make sure that eveyone is deserving of the animal, and to see where the animal will live and sleep and to check fences etc.

The SPCA does no home checks at all that we have been able to determine, except in the few branches that are all-volunteer such as the Powell River SPCA. Dogs and cats are handed over with no guarantees of their future happiness or safety.

Real animal wefarists will not even discuss giving a dog to anyone who says they have a "nice dog house" for the dog, or intimates in any way that a dog will be kept outside.

The SPCA will sell a dog, even a short-haired dog, to live outside much of its life, even in the North. Worse - it actually recommends that some dogs it is selling can, or should, be kept outside.

Real animal welfarists will keep in touch with an animal's new owners for as long as it takes to make sure that the adoption is secure and all problems are addressed.

The SPCA claims to make follow-up checks, but we see little evidence of that, except in the few volunteer-run branches and by a few volunteers in other branches. But there is no BC SPCA follow-up policy.

Real animal welfarists take back an animal if things are not working out in spite of all the precautions that were taken.

So will the SPCA, but the difference is that if the animal is not easy to resell, it may be killed.

The SPCA may kill a dog if the purchaser has given as an excuse for returning it, that it was aggressive.

Real animal welfarists would determine if the dog was really aggressive or just misunderstood. And if there were aggression issues, real animal welfarists would address that, not kill the dog.

The difference is clear. Any society that practices the SPCA's policies, is not "adopting" animals - it is selling them.