In January 2001, AAS withstood the SPCA's first attempt to scare us with lawyers, by posting even more information about its mistreatment of animals and saying that we would continue to do this until the goal of an honest, animal-serving SPCA had been reached. We said then that when the SPCA was doing real animal welfare, we would temper the AAS web site to reflect that.

God only knows - we tried to find things to praise the SPCA for, but it was pretty heavy going. At first, when the SPCA held community consultations and wrote an excellent report which confirmed all AAS's allegations and which urged the SPCA to serve animals and be honest, we actually believed that our job was over and that we could trust the SPCA.

That turned out to be very naive of us. The SPCA did not give up its two biggest income sources, dog control contracting and unlimited surrender. Those two policies account for the killing of thousands of animals yearly (probably hundreds of thousands if little creatures are counted). The SPCA still actively pursues dog disposal contracts and still takes in animals that it knows it will kill. It did not even stop its staff from breeding and selling more animals until 2003. It did not even start to sterilize the animals it sells until 2004.

But it ramped up the P.R. with phoney announcements of a moratorium on killing for space. And it created a "scientific" test to justify killing all the unsellable dogs that it has because of pound contracting and unlimited surrender. It produced smoke and mirrors programs like the Violence Link Project. It went on training its employees in cheap in-house killing (using unsellable animals) but it did not start training employees in animal health, behaviour or the ethics of animal welfare. It spent hundreds of thousands on Head Office staff and retreats and travel etc, while the helpless animals it used to get donations with, suffered in bleak, diseased cells and cages. And it made more money by seizing healthy animals, demanding thousands of dollars from the owners if they wanted their animals back, and looking heroic in the media.

These things are just the tip of the iceberg. AAS has reported on all the other examples of how the SPCA dodged real reform. But we have not stopped watching for sign of real reform for these last four years so that we can post whatever we find.