Municipal pounds are far from perfect too.

Sadly, municipal councillors and staff do not seem to understand real animal welfare much better than the SPCA does. And they have not resisted the temptation to make the claim that they are no-kill or at least to give the voters the strong impression that they are no-kill. The power of public opinion has driven a new way of presenting the nasty job of animal control in North America. No one wants to be called a pound, everyone wants to claim to do animal welfare and to shelter animals. So P.R. words are put into the service of misrepresenting this nasty business.

The most blatant example of dishonest P.R. is the Vancouver City Pound now calling itself the Vancouver Animal Shelter. For one, there are no other animals but dogs. And two, no real "shelter" keeps the "sheltered" in the conditions that the Vancouver City Pound does, and no real shelter kills any of the sheltered.

All pounds have only one purpose and that is to protect the public from dogs. There is no mandate or money to protect dogs from humans. A pound that operates in a municipality that has no animal protection laws can never protect animals.

Municipal pounds quickly jumped on the no-kill bandwagon without passing the laws that could make no-kill happen. They just said they were no-kill and moved on to other business. It is up to animal lovers in their municipality to understand what the roots causes of the need to dispose of unwanted pets are, and to get the laws that will make their municipality honestly no-kill.