No Returns

This is perhaps, one of the “answers” I found most provoking. Simply put, the OSPCA claimed that it was not so much a matter of not allowing “returns” but legally speaking, as the dogs, once adopted, became the property of the adopter – then they were not technically “returns” but ‘surrenders’ and the THS is not, by OSPCA directives, NOT open to surrenders.

This is doublespeak at its worst.

The reality is that EVERY reputable shelter not only takes in their returns but DEMANDS that if an adoption does not work, the animal MUST be returned.

Currently animals – returns and otherwise- are being redirected to Toronto Animal Services (and in a pinch, OSPCA facilities outside Toronto).

The reality of this is that if an animal is returned and re-directed to TAS, it places that animal in a possibly lethal position.

I am not “TAS-bashing”; frankly, TAS has improved remarkably over the past many years. The professionalism of their staff, their attitude towards animals, their efforts to make animals adoptable continue to improve.

HOWEVER, they do not and were never intended to have the same mandate as the Toronto Humane Society.

First and FOREMOST, the THS was a refuge. It was to their doors that the sick came, into our halls that the neglected and abused found succour and love and caring, it was within the environs of the THS that animals with “issues” were provided with an opportunity to learn that the world wasn’t always a terrible place.....

The TAS is not intended to be a refuge. First and foremost its mandate is animal CONTROL. While their efforts to find homes for animals is commendable – they are neither prepared nor qualified to deal with even a quarter of the issues in animals that the THS chose (and overall, successfully managed) to do with animals that anywhere else would be considered “unadoptable”.

Thus, animals from OUR facility that are redirected elsewhere (often for those self-same issues) have very little chance of making the “adoptable” list and run a much greater possibility of losing the lottery ...