I was reading this article in the Daily News and was thinking it was a routine expose prompted by former employees, and then I got to this one paragraph which bascially screams that the PENNSYLVANIA SPCA is abusing pets? Read this article yourself and you tell ME - I am excerpting the one section which disturbs me the most, but read the entire article, which is VERY long...
Posted on Mon, Nov. 10, 2008

Stu Bykofsky: SPCA claims: Real deal, or the work of DFEs?

....anonymity.

In late spring, a Chihuahua was abused during a "catch pole" training session at the shelter, he said. The animal-control device is a pole with a lasso-type loop on one end. The loop snags the animal's neck, while the pole keeps the animal at a distance, to prevent biting.

Agent Wayne Smith led the training, giving each of five or six trainees a chance to snare the frightened brown dog in a stacked cage about five feet high, pull him out by the loop around his neck and lower him into a carrier on the floor. Capture practice, then using a leash, was repeated on the tiny dog by all trainees.

"The dog was scared to death, flipping out, going nuts. Each time it was more traumatic on this poor animal. I would classify this as torture," said the former agent.

It went on for 40 minutes, he said. Then Smith euthanized the tiny dog.

Smith denied the allegation, saying that "a catch pole is never used on a dog that size."

The Chihuahua was "very aggressive," he said, and had been marked for euthanasia earlier because he was too wild to be adopted.