----- Original Message -----
From: Heather Pettit
To: board@spca.bc.ca
Cc: animaladvocates@telus.net
Sent: Saturday, April 02, 2005 2:01 PM
Subject: Mary Lou Troman's March 31, 2005 letter to the editor of the Vancouver Sun

Dear Mary Lou:

I was very interested in your letter to the editor of the Vancouver Sun dated March 31, 2005, but I was also puzzled by the BC SPCA's "positive changes" which you say that AAS has refused to acknowledge. As you will read in the following e-mail to AAS, I am unaware of any positive changes at the BC SPCA Vernon & District Branch. If I, too, am misinformed or out of date in my concerns, I apologize. Please correct me if I am wrong. I would love to hear some truly positive news about our community's shelter.

Heather Pettit

Re AAS' supposed "refusal to acknowledge positive changes":

If there have been any positive changes in the BC SPCA since November 2001 [ when members and volunteers lost any responsibility or authority over their local shelters] they seem not to have filtered through to the Vernon & District Branch. When volunteers directed this branch, the adoption fee for all cats and kittens included the total cost of spaying and neutering. One of the first changes made by the BC SPCA employees was to cancel that arrangement and to revert to a small deposit which would be deducted from the total cost of the procedure. Another change made by the BC SPCA professionals was to deny help to low income individuals whose critically ill animals need to be euthanized, help which had been available when the branch was managed by volunteers. Although the volunteer-run Vernon Branch had been able to afford to dedicate $10,000 - in one year alone - to spay/neuter assistance for pets from low income families, the professionally run organization claims to be unable to afford to offer any help at all. Hours and staff have been cut drastically and, when the branch is open [ Wednesday to Sunday 12 noon to 5 pm ], it's very difficult to speak directly to an employee; the answering machine tells all non-emergency callers to leave a message and we'll get back to you. Another change has been the cancellation of our volunteer board's arrangement with the local Transition House to provide free sheltering for the pets of women fleeing abusive relationships; the BC SPCA professionals, I'm told, feared liability issues and cancelled this program.

Please, Mary Lou, tell me what positive changes have been made at our branch in the last three and a half years. All of us who worked so hard to build that shelter and to keep it running for fifteen years are heartsick about the negative changes your employees appear to have made. Are we missing something? Have we been misinformed about what is going on in our own community? We'd love to hear some truly positive news about the Vernon Branch.