West Chester SPCA Stops Doing Business With Delco Animal Control

The Chester County Society for the Protection of Animals (SPCA) will no longer be working with Delaware County Animal Control, they announced Wednesday.

The West Chester-based SPCA said they had several grievances with the way Media’s Delco Animal Control was handling missing pets.

The number of pets which Delco was sending to Chester County was half of what it should have been in recent months, officials told the Delaware County Daily Times, and they don’t know what’s been happening to all the missing animals.

The Delaware County SPCA became a no-kill shelter in 2012, meaning that they could no longer accept strays. This brought the Chester County SPCA into a direct contract with Delco Animal Control.

Now, the Chester County SPCA will instead be working directly with Delaware County municipalities in order to “bring continuity to the care and treatment of stray animals found within the county.”

“It is the job of animal control and animal welfare organizations such as ours to make sure that every stray animal found is given the opportunity to be reunited with its owner,” the SPCA said on Facebook.

“We are talking about people’s pets, beloved members of their families, and residents should not be denied the opportunity to find them in the event they go missing.“

“We’ve been aware of problems with Delaware County Animal Control in the last few years and they’ve just gotten worse,” Brian Razzi, chairman of the Delaware County Animal Protection Board, told the Delaware County Daily Times.

An attorney for Animal Control said that the reduced number of animals being delivered could be explained by a higher success rate in reuniting animals with their owners, according to the report.

Chesco SPCA officials also said that Delco Animal Control had received a written warning from the Bureau of Dog Law, and that continued association would be harmful for the SPCA’s reputation.