SF Weekly Letters

"In the past 12 months, the SF/SPCA has adopted out approximately 4,000 animals. This achievement hasn't increased the percentage of returned animals, or those we sadly had to euthanize due to illness or behavior instability." Oh, no, no, no Ms. McHugh-Smith. In the spirit of "transparency" which you and your administration spout ad nauseum , break it down for the public who are intentionally kept in the dark by you. How many were returned but adopted out AGAIN? How many lives are you using to enhance your numbers in the hopes of seducing people into giving you more money? Your "open adoptions" policy serves you well. An animal adopted out under a marketing ploy of a weekend "special" reduced fee is counted as 1 adoption. If that animal is unfortunate enough to be sent off in a poor match and is returned, you try to adopt that animal out again and then count it as a 2nd adoption. You have no right to use the word "we" in terms of your administration of the SPCA. YOU had nothing to do with establishing it's ground breaking, progressive, admired and respected policies and programs. YOU are riding on it's reputation and are doing an amazing job of sullying and destroying all that made it exceptional at a breathtaking rate. Your PR department and it's capabilities are enormously expert and strong, however, there are cracks in the glass and one can see through them. The SF SPCA was dedicated to taking in the "old and the uglies". The SF SPCA was dedicated to caring for it's own animals first and foremost. There is absolutely no other explanation for the out of town transfers you are bringing in, to the cost of SF's animals, other than a desire to jack up your numbers. If a specialist, say an oncologist rents space from your new hospital, do you not earn income off of them? Will they offer their expertise and services to clients at reduced rates, or on a payment plan? Just wondering. I support you on one thing: the author of the article did indeed interview staff. Staff - not just you and your hand picked underlings - but others who had the "cold, hard facts" readily at hand. Tulane was not given the chance a cat in his predicament would once have been given. He was not given consistent medical evaluations. Your medical staff excused themselves away by claiming he was not eating and was facing liver failure, yet those employed by you to actually clean his cage reported stools in his litter box. Tulane would have cost you money and money mattered more than his life did. Sorry Ms. McHugh-Smith, you had nothing to do with what the SPCA once was, but you and your underlings have everything to do with it's sad demise. Well done, Mr. Geluardi.

Gosh – I am still really horrified about the San Francisco SPCA’s decision to kill Isaac, the 50-pound pup. When I was a child, my family adopted a puppy about the same age as Isaac. Over the course of a few months, she took to biting us kids. Our parents immediately placed an ad in the local newspaper for an ‘ADULT ONLY’ household. I remember interviewing the new family to be sure it was a good match. Sure enough, our puppy who had a tendency to bite children did wonderfully in a mature, adult-only household. With all the fancy dog trainers at the SPCA, you would think they could have found an appropriate home for Isaac rather than killing him!. Killing Isaac rather than finding him a good home is despicable. At the very least, the SPCA could have transferred Isaac to a dog rescue. However, I hear that the SF SPCA does not work with rescues…

Ms Jan McHugh Smith: I am not sure you will have time to read this comment on your letter to the Editor since you maybe too busy decorating your new home in Marin. From your LTE, you obvious don't understand or fail to understand the unique nature of the SFSPCA. It is not the Boulder Humane Society that you came from, the SFSPCA is a No-Kill shelter, established by the hard work of Richard Avanzino, current and past staff and volunteers. It is not the amount of animals that you place each year that is most important, it is the ability to find and match them with a new home and family which matters most. In the other words, it is the quality instead of the quantity that matters. No one asked you to COMBINE your record with ACC, since it is SFSPCA's job and responsibility to take in difficult to place animals according to the 1994 SFSPCA-ACC Pact. Yes, a lot of us have a copy of the PACT, and it spells out in there. You may want to read it while sipping your coffee or tea in the morning. In the recent past before you came, dogs like Issac and cats like Tulane would have been re-home after extensive help from volunteers such as myself. It is a utter disgrace that they were treated that way. By the way, you have done nothing commendable except eliminating valuable programs such as the Hearing Dog Program.

So, Jan McHugh-Smith, here you go again. You say the SPCA has a 98 percent save rate? You must be kidding. It is strange how that percentage is rising - and rising - every time you speak. Why don't you just use 100 percent and then you wouldn't have to try to remember what percentage you used last time? As for Isaac, the six-months old puppy you had euthanized, the one point you never acknowledge is that, in the time before you came, a tiny puppy like Isaac would never have been adopted out to a family with young children, but of course that is one of the screening policies you discarded, isn't it? Rather than spend the money to retrain him, you made Isaac pay the price for your uncaring self-serving attitude. The SF SPCA does not need you or your equally bad Vice President. You came into our City, took over a wonderful institution and ground it into the dust, and the animals are paying the price.

The story of Isaac, the puppy, is heartbreaking. He was a lovely little puppy adopted out to a family with two nine-year old boys. For Jan McHugh-Smith to state: "At 50 pounds and with a known history of aggression directed at children, including a bite that broke skin, rehoming him was not an option for public safety reasons", is a sickening shifting of blame from herself to that poor little dog. What she does not say is that in the past (before the sorry day she came to SF), the SPCA had a strong screening policy and would never adopt an animal to a family with children. McHugh-Smith demolished that (and many other) policies, resulting in Isaac being adopted out to what must, to him, have been a family from hell. For McHugh-Smith to blithely now try to state that Isaac was already vicious brings up a question: if he had a known history of aggression, why was he adopted out to a family with children? The answer, of course, is that (a) he had no history of aggression at all, which then lays the blame with the SPCA for allowing him to (b) go to a family with children in the first place. So, either way, McHugh-Smith is caught again in her own misinformation. Keep your facts straight, Jan.

Jan, what you don't seem to get is that many San Franciscans were proud of the advances the SPCA was able to achieve in the world of animal welfare. You have systematically undermined many of those achievements. As a former volunteer and long-term supporter, I not only am fearful for SF animals, but I feel personally betrayed by your abandonment of all that was achieved prior to your arrival. Until I feel the SF SPCA (whether you are still involved or not) returns to at least striving toward a no-kill city, I will not continue my regular donations. Once I feel the SF SPCA is honoring the pact with ACC, cooperating with rescue groups, valuing life more than statistics, will I continue to donate and contribute.

"Euthanasia decisions are labored over and made only after every viable humane option is exhausted. In the cases your reporter referenced, Tulane was examined by our expert veterinary staff and found to be irredeemably suffering. Releasing him into a feral colony would have been inhumane and irresponsible."

I wish to comment on the above statement from the SF/SPCA, which contains many mistruths. Tulane was a socialized feral cat that had no interaction with it’s guardian after adoption so went feral in the guardian’s home. Tulane was then returned to the SF/SPCA and was now very feral. Tulane’s original caretaker was very willing to have Tulane back in his colony, once he was well. So this was one humane solution that was not followed through on by the SFSPCA.

No medical tests were done on this cat to determine if he was really suffering. This cat was not eating normally, which is very normal for a feral cat. Also some feral cats do very badly in a shelter environment and just for that reason will stop eating.

Why didn’t the SFSPCA ask their resident expert on feral cats, Feral Cat Program Coordinator, her opinion on how to handle the outcome of this cat instead of just telling her that they were going to kill him? There were humane, ethical, responsible remedies that could have been tried, BUT WERE NOT.

A feral cat that is not eating in a shelter environment is not always from a medical cause, in fact it is usually stress. I have worked with hundreds of feral cats, adult and kittens, that had stopped eating. This is very common with feral cats. The remedy is to syringe feed them until they are stabilized and able to eat on their own. This takes as long as it takes and my experience is a couple days to months. Syringe feeding is extremely humane and has saved the lives of hundreds of thousands of cats all over the world. Again here is another humane, ethical, responsible remedie that could have been tried, BUT WAS NOT.

We would of wished that the SFSPCA would have turned over the cat to the original caretaker and then bloodwork would of been done to determine why Tulane wasn’t eating. The SFSPCA was unwilling to do these tests, but feral cat volunteers were willing to do and pay for these tests. The feral cat program volunteers are always willing to work with the SFSPCA when there is a feral cat that needs help, ALWAYS, but we weren’t given that chance. So once again another humane, ethical and responsible option that WAS NOT TRIED.

We would NOT have just released this cat back into his colony immediately. Bloodwork would have been done first, then we would have worked on getting Tulane to eat again. Then there is a 3-4 week reintroduction back into his colony. So there is always a long process to returning a feral cat to its colony.

A lot of people wrongly panic when a “socialized” feral cat that is doing badly in captivity is returned back to its colony & family. Most feral cats prefer being in their colonies and outdoors. This is their home and where they want to live. This is NOT unethical, inhumane, irresponsible or illegal as the SFSPCA misstates. It is most times in the best interests of the feral cat. I am pretty sure that Tulane would of been much happier if he had been given the chance of being stabilized and put back with his colony and family. No animal ever prefers death when with some work life can be good again.
L-Danyielle Yacobucci, SFSPCA Feral Cat Team Volunteer since 1995

Once again, a whole bunch of B.S. fluff from Jan McHugh-Smith. How you, as the President of an organization like the SF SFPCA, can blatantly lie in print is pretty amazing. How you can state something so confidently, such as Tulane's situation, yet have no clue that the facts state the opposite, shows just how detached you are from the animals. I'm sure you had no idea who this shy little black cat was before this article began to take form. Now, I'm sure you wish your "expert veterinary staff" would have actually examined this cat instead of basing their decision on an inaccurate chart. The point is all of these numbers and statistics that you drool out are even less valid than the "hearsay" that defenders of your operation claim all this is hoopla is. Anyone who knows anything about percentages and statistics knows that they can be made to say whatever you want them to say. Of course the numbers of adoptions have gone up, when you're adopting out the same animal two, three, even four times that's going to bump your "numbers" up greatly. And of course that's not going to effect the "percentages" of returns because it will balance itself out. However, do you think the general public would be happy to know that their donation money is going to getting an animal into a home as quickly and carelessly as possible, only to have it come back again and again - in turn costing more and more money; rather than having that animal there for a little bit longer yet end up in a home where they knew what to expect from that animal and the time, care and effort was given to evaluate and determine to the best of their abilities, what that animal will be like in the home and what is the best home for that animal? Unfortunately, many people will go on believing all of the numbers and statistics that dribble from your mouth and all the spin that you can put on these situations. People try so hard no to believe that an organization so well respected, such as the SF SPCA could be controlled by someone who cares so little about the animals themselves. All I can do is hope that people take a second to see beyond your fluffy "positive" spin and look at the animals that are being declined at ACC every day. All those animals who would have been given a second chance prior to your arrival in this wonderful city. Those are the victims in this situation. It makes me extremely sad.

Where on the SFSPCA web site is a detailed policy regarding the killing of animals ? Where is the explanation of this policy? Where on the web site is any rationalization for ending the hearing dog program? Where on the web site are the detailed explanations of these new policies and the reason for implementing these policies?

Why did the SFSPCA fail to provide this information to the media? What information regarding these policies is given to adoptors and those who wish to give up animals to theSFSPCA? What information regarding these policies do you give to potential donors?

The SFSPCA has a reputation as a no-kill shelter. However, this reputation is no longer deserved, and SFSPCA has not given the San Francisco community adequate information about this change.

A 98% save rate is outstanding. What assurance to San Franciscans have that this save rate will endure these changes policies?