Members of Citizens for Animal Welfare filled the City Council meeting over the current policies of the Rockingham-Harrisonburg SPCA (no relation to the ASPCA); an organization that seems to be leading all the area animal shelters in the number of animals they kill, despite dramatic increases in their government funding.

Statistics from the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services show that in 2008 the shelter killed 65-percent of all animals under it’s care. In 2004, 76-percent of all animals were killed. To put this in perspective, the Charlottesville SPCA had a kill rate of 12-percent, 53-percent less than the RHSPCA.

The CFAW members are requesting to take over the duties and fund of the RHSPCA and work in conjunction with other local and regional animal welfare organizations in order to drastically reduce the area’s kill rate through a new no-kill shelter. One member of the CFAW cited the RHSPCA’s lack of cooperation with other organizations as a major factor contributing to the number of pets that have to be euthanized. The RHSPCA was offered and has decline free spay and neuter services, software to computerize their record keeping and offers by to house many of their animals.

In a Daily News Record editorial, the Director a board member of the RHSPCA claimed, “the real reason animals die at RHSPCA: the people who are not being responsible pet owners!”