The animal pound in Betton: an open letter in response to SACPA's press release
At the beginning of May 2025, we filed a complaint and released images filmed at the SACPA animal pound in Betton, revealing situations of mistreatment, lack of care for suffering animals, and appalling conditions of detention, exposing the animals to injury and obvious distress.
On 14 May, this private organisation published a statement claiming to “set the record straight”, refuting any problems and attempting to discredit our work by producing a series of documents intended to justify its management of the animals. However, careful analysis of these documents —which SACPA itself made public— only confirms the seriousness of the facts denounced in our videos.
Two days of avoidable suffering for a dog with a tumour
Among the most heartbreaking cases was that of a griffon basset hound suffering from a massive, raw anal tumour. The SACPA claims to have reacted quickly. However, their own documents contradict these statements: the little dog went without any care for two whole days between her arrival on 28 January 2025 and her first veterinary consultation on the 30th. For nearly fifty hours, she endured unbearable suffering, without respite or relief. And despite her obvious pain, the teams were forbidden from taking her to see a vet. Yet SACPA acknowledges the extent of the damage: a “bloody” tumour “obstructing the passage of faeces”. How can one watch a living being suffer like this and choose to wait? Where is the humanity in this decision? Where is the ethics in this delay?
Another case: even thinner after two months at the SACPA
Another shocking example is that of Prada, a young Malinois. She entered the pound on 14 January 2025, frail and emaciated, as noted in the examination on 17/01. Two months later, when she finally left the facility, her condition had dramatically worsened: on 25 March, the vet estimated that she was ‘very thin’. Her body also bore other marks: lick sores, a sign of deep stress and discomfort that she could only express through these repetitive, desperate gestures. After ten long weeks at the Betton facility, Prada emerged neither treated nor comforted, but weaker than when she arrived. No improvement. Just a slow and cruel deterioration.
Codey, victim of a system that reverses the roles
Regarding a dog that the SACPA claims to have classified as a “biter”, it had nevertheless described him as “sociable” when he entered the pound on 17 July 2023. Moreover, Codey had undergone tests with the police dog brigade… which he failed due to his refusal to bite. The consistent testimonies we have gathered mention violence, deprivation and strangulation with a lasso. It was the violent treatment he suffered that led him to bite as a last resort.
Dogs mentioned without proof
The pound also mentions the dogs Mika, Jazz and Rocky. However, no evidence has been produced concerning them, contrary to what has been claimed. These names are used to divert attention, without providing any answers to the concrete facts presented by us.
Old images? Persistent abuse
Finally, while some videos date back to 2023, they show the continuity of a system: past events do not become any less reprehensible with the passage of time. Abuse does not vanish with the passing years. Is hitting dogs in the pound excusable on the pretext that they are no longer there today? This is illogical and unacceptable.
We have filed a complaint, supported by images and testimonies describing the refusal of veterinary care to seriously injured animals, abusive euthanasia, litters of kittens killed for no reason, cats placed alive in freezers, animals left to die in agony or infected due to a lack of basic sanitary precautions: acts constituting cruelty, mistreatment and wilful harm to an animal’s life.
SACPA’s statement only confirms its inability to assume its responsibilities. Behind the facade, the facts are there. Inexcusable. Unjustifiable.
We will continue to hold animal pounds accountable and to denounce the systemic abuses perpetrated by certain organisations. Animals deserve better than defensive press releases and empty files. They deserve our consideration, care and real protection.
Sign our petition to demand an end to these massacres and to obtain reforms that will put an end to abandonment.