The killing of Maggie once again raises serious concerns about the practices and policies of the BC SPCA.

Should an animal controller, who authorized the killing of a dog because it shakes, be working at a so-called animal welfare society?

How many other people are working at SPCAs who kill that easily?

Lack of training, or training in animal control and disposal rather than animal welfare, the hiring of people who accept the job of animal control and disposal, and the firing of staff who put welfare before control, has been a concern of real animal welfarists and many members of the public for as long as AAS has been doing animal welfare - 20 years. We have documented this same concern going back 50 years.

I find it troubling that the SPCA would hire a person who will give the order to kill a dog based on what appears to be scant information. It's not even true that distemper is an "incurable disease". It's especially curable in an adult dog, but even pups and old dogs with distemper are treated and saved by real animal welfarists.

That a manager of an SPCA didn't know about the 96 hours rule reveals that training is still a problem, but is not nearly as troubling as the SPCA having a 96 hour rule at all.

As far as I know, the SPCA's time limit on the disposal of dogs is 21 days, after which time the dogs have to be killed or transfered to another branch (where they may then be killed). But there are many and various reasons the SPCA allows itself to kill animals, whether a few minutes, 96 hours, or 21 days have passed. I can't help but wonder if "shaking" is on the list of reasons the SPCA can kill an animal for and still say it doesn't kill any "adoptable" animals, a statement that many people misinterpret to mean that the SPCA is no-kill.

Once again, the SPCA has reacted to public exposure. Good thing for public exposure.