On Christmas Eve, 2001, at 10:45 pm, I received a phone call from a friend, frantic, begging me to come over. A tiny pup had just been thrown from a moving vehicle in a garbage bag, onto her front lawn, skidding 20 feet across the crisp snow, and coming to rest under her tree.

My friend had no idea what to do with a pup so young, so I brought her home with me, tiny baby that she was, her eyes just opened and still blue. She could not have been more than 2 1/2 weeks old. I named her Noelle.

I spent Christmas worrying about what had happened to her siblings and her mother.

A few days later, while in the pet supply store for puppy milk replacer, I noticed the latest Vernon SPCA list of dogs available tacked to the bulletin board. I noticed it listed a dog named "Scruffy" , surrendered with 6 pups over the holidays. The pups were listed as being 3 weeks old. I had to go look.

Scruffy was a sweet, funny, thin deerhound type of dog. She was friendly and biddable, and terribly in need of a bath. Her pups were outgoing and noisy, and one in particular, was a bang on identical match to Noelle. I had found my puppy's family.

Three Vernon SPCA employees all corroborated the same story to me of how Scruffy and her pups came to be at the Vernon SPCA: Scruffy came from Cherryville, a rural community east of Vernon. She was deliberately bred, the father was a staffordshire terrier who lived down the road, and this dog's owner and Scruffy's owner planned to make money off the pups. There were eight pups born, and shortly after the two breeders decided to split the pups, as they felt Scruffy wasn't able to nourish all of them. The owner of the father dog took five pups, leaving 3 with Scruffy. Just before Christmas, Scruffy's owner surrendered her and the three pups to the Vernon SPCA, claiming he was not able to give them the care they needed. Just after Christmas, the owner of the father dog surrendered 3 more pups to the Vernon SPCA , for the same reasons. This person claimed to have found "good homes" for two of the pups over Christmas. Well, one of the two was tossed out in a garbage bag in subzero temepratures. And as for the other, puppy number 8? I feared the worst for that little pup.

Again, these details were repeated to me at three separate times by three different Vernon SPCA employess, so I consider them to be true.

And the word "surrender" was all over Scruffy's paperwork, so I considered this to be true. I asked the SPCA at what time they planned to put her up for adoption, and was told that she would be available when the pups were weaned.

I knew the pups would be an easy sell, but I worried about her. I visited her often, and promised her that I'd take her out of her cage and bring her home and have her spayed, and fatten her up on good food, and let her sleep on the couch, and reunite her with one of the babies that was taken from her too early.

Finally the day arrived when the pups were old enough to be apart from their mum, and I went up to the Vernon SPCA to see about adopting Scruffy. To my surprise and disbelief, I was told that she would not be going up for adoption. I was told "She's going back". Her owner wanted her back, and the SPCA was going to give her back. I was horrified. I asked them how they could even consider doing such a thing, and was told that they had to do it, they had no choice. I pointed out that they had to do no such thing, as Scruffy had been surrendered, and was legally their dog now.

It was then that I was told that she "wasn't REALLY" surrendered. I pointed out that the word "surrendered" appeared all over her paperwork. Again I was told that she wasn't "technically" surrendered. So what was she then? No one could tell me.

I asked to speak to the manager, who at that time was Tom Bishop. He told me that because it was not actually the owner that brought Scruffy in, rather that it was a friend, that she therefore was not legally surrendered. I asked Mr. Bishop whether he was aware that Scruffy was in poor physical condition when she arrived at the shelter, and he was aware of this. I asked him how he could justify sending her back to a neglectful owner. He told me that he didn't like to do it, but that he had no choice. Well, I can't imagine that he minded doing it that much. As a matter of fact, when I asked him whether he intended to charge Scruffy's owner a month's board for caring for his dogs, he became quite puffed up and pleased with himself. He magnanimously told me that no, the owner wasn't going to be charged a penny, but that the SPCA would be compensated by being left 5 of the pups.

I wondered to myself how that setup was any different from a pet shop or home dog retailer. I asked whether any arrangement had been made to have Scruffy spayed. There had been none. I wondered to myself if Scruffy might reappear at the Vernon SPCA six months from now, with a new litter for the SPCA to raise and sell.

I left seething with anger , and didn't visit Noelle's mother and family again. It was too upsetting, and the thought of the SPCA returning that poor sweet dog to a life of neglect and usery, and selling her pups off in trade, made my blood boil.

On January 16th, 2002, Scruffy was returned to her owner, along with one of her puppies. The remaining 5 pups were sold by the SPCA into new homes.
The SPCA knew Scruffy had been neglected.
The SPCA knew Scruffy had been bred deliberately.
The SPCA knew that one of Scruffy's pups had been given to a home that subsequently disposed of her in a horrible way on Christmas Eve.
And they sent her back. Unspayed. To be bred again.

I have not seen Scruffy since. I think of her constantly, and of how I was unable to keep my promise to her. If I ever see her again, I will pay any price for her.

My dear Noelle has grown up into a wonderful dog. She is the light of my life, and though I didn't know her mother really well, I know she has her mother's gentleness and sense of humour. And often when I look at Noelle I hear Tom Bishop's words ringing in my ears that day we had our conversation: "You know, if that pup gets to be too much for you, just bring her down to us, we'd be happy to take her for you."
I bet you would Tom. What would she fetch? $100? $120? She's awfully cute, I bet she'd sell fast. Over my dead body.

But the story doesn't end here.

What of puppy number 8? Well, I found him at the Vernon SPCA in October of 2002. He had been picked up as a stray in Lumby (a tiny town between Vernon and Cherryville.) He'd had a home neuter job attempted on him. He was a mess. The Vernon SPCA told me that if they had known who his owners were they'd have pressed charges. Yet they knew the dog's name, because "even though he was picked up as a stray, everyone in town knows him". Well, that then begs the question, if everyone in town knows him, then surely someone would know who owns him? It's not rocket science, and it may involve paying someone off for information, but with minimal investigation, and maybe for fifty bucks, the SPCA could likely have found out who butchered this dog.

All that aside, I got him out of the SPCA cage he'd spent 3 months in, and brought him home to meet his sister. Howie (the name I gave him, as his original name had offensive connotations) and Noelle took to each other instantly, and wrestle and play and behave as only siblings can.

And what of the rest of the pups? It had crossed my mind to try to get them all out of the SPCA before they were sold to unscreened strangers. But my own house was full, and I know my limits, and won't take on more than I can humanely care for, and so I had to leave them in the hands of the SPCA. I know all 5 were sold, but I only know what happened to one.

The pup who is Noelle's twin reappeared at the Vernon SPCA in May 2003. Her story did not surprise me- it's the story of most cute pups who are marketed to strangers as lifestyle accessories. It's the story of why so many pups grow into dogs who are left outside alone or chained, because a dog is time consuming and cannot be put away in a box or stuffed into a drawer when there isn't time for it.

Frieda was sold by the Vernon SPCA as a cute pup, to a couple who both worked full time. No one who works full time has any business buying a puppy, and no organization that claims to be speaking for animals would sell a puppy to a home that has no time for it and will isolate it. Frieda went from the Vernon SPCA to her new home, then into the back yard. Lonely and bored, she would routinely escape, and the third time she was picked up by dog control, her owners would not pay to have her released. She had become an inconvenience, so they left her there. She was less than a year old, and had been betrayed three times: by her breeder, by the SPCA, and by her "owners'.

But the betrayal wasn't over. A person who claims to be a "rescuer" took her from the dog control officer, kept her for 7 months, then dumped her back at the Vernon SPCA, claiming no one had expressed any interest in "adopting" her.

Round and round it goes, the cycle of breed, purchase, dump - and "rescue".

Jennifer Dickson
Vernon BC