"News from the Courts
Pennsylvania – On December 29, 2009, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court held that the non-profit group that enforces Pennsylvania's animal control laws does not qualify for governmental immunity from lawsuits that result from that work. The court said that there was no reason to think the Pennsylvania General Assembly intended to grant the Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals status as a commonwealth agency, therefore it is not entitled to a governmental immunity defense.

The Pennsylvania high court's ruling upheld a Philadelphia jury's verdict that awarded a woman $155,000 from the Pennsylvania SPCA after about one dozen dogs taken from her home were euthanized."

Maybe I am mis reading your note. It seems to me to be a good thing that the SPCA can't have immunity from prosecution. If they did have immunity, they might act with impunity with little regard to the impact of their behavior.

If I am reading this wrong, I apologize. In my opinion, I don't want the government to protect any group from bad bahavior.

The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) was the first humane society to be established in North America and is, today, one of the largest in the world. The organization was founded by in 1866 on the belief that animals are entitled to kind and respectful treatment at the hands of humans, and must be protected under the law.

This long-respected organization has no relationship to "Humane Society of the United States" (HSUS) or to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). It does not share an agenda or any resources with these "animal rights" groups. The Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Creulty to Animals (PSPCA) is not affiliated with the ASPCA - even though they do share parts of a name. It was formed about a year after the ASPCA and has its own stated mission within the state of Pennsylvania.

Please do not confuse these organizations or their agendas with each other. Lumping them all together is like lumping all "dog owners" or "breeders" together. The goals and methods are very different.

The post was more meant to highlight the fact that they seized and killed 12 dogs from a breeder in PA.
It could happen to you!!

what an organization is founded to do, can sometimes be altered by the membership it comes to contain.

While I do not disagree with your facts concerning how the organization was formed, I think you may be mistaken to think that the only type of individual it attracts for membership is someone who ONLY agrees with the organization's original goals. Unfortunately PETA types and HSUS types, seeking to achieve their goals cannot act under color of law because their organizations have no legal standing in that regard. This causes many of their members to join regional ASPCA groups, because this organization can act as an enforcement authority under color of law. When this happens you can have, through no fault of the founding principles of the ASPCA, people who are over zealous in their enforcement of "animal protection", reflecting an AR agenda.

I am not saying this is the majority of what the ASPCA does, or that a majority of those working in the ASPCA are AR activists, but to close your eyes to the fact that some AR types are very active in the ASPCA and take advantage of its legal standing to promote their agenda on occasion, is just burying your head in the sand. Sorry.

Do you have a link that shows the story on these dogs?

The fact is that the ASPCA was not in any way involved with this news story, just the PSPCA. The careless way in which the ASPCA (a respected group) was mistakenly attributed to be connected to PETA in this situation when neither of these organizations was involved was the reason for my post. We must be careful when painting groups we don't even know with such a broad brush. We would not like being on the receiving end. Practicing the golden rule and a little care to get the facts straight go a long way.