Today Gwen at last goes to the Cancer Clinic in Surrey. Cancer is a terrifying experience even when treatment goes as expected, but there were many setbacks for Gwen that most people are not subjected to. During the first surgery to remove her uterus and ovaries, on the day after she paid the SPCA $3800 to get Dakota, her perfectly healthy dog, back from the SPCA, her bowel was nicked and massive infections resulted. Gwen was in and out of hospital for I.V. antibiotics and was on handfuls of pills for pain and vomiting for over a month. A second surgery did not find the leak. It took a third surgery and removal of some of the bowel to stop the infection. During much of this time Gwen had the added anxiety of not knowing if the SPCA would sell or kill Dakota if she couldn't raise the money to get him back.

During all this, Gwen would sit in the yard with her animals whenever she had the strength. Her friends are doing the hands-on care and AAS supporters are paying vet bills. And during all this, the SPCA made "visits" to Gwen's. And it cashed $250 in cheques that Gwen had been forced to give the SPCA as payment for the cats it seized from her. That is on top of the $3800 Gwen had to pay the SPCA to get Dakota back, a dog that was not in distress by any definition, legal or otherwise and was seized without the SPCA serving Gwen with a Warning Notice which the PCA Act requires it to do, in fact was as loved, well-fed and as happy as any dog can be, having the freedom of the whole farm, lots of friends to play and sleep with, and Gwen to go on hikes with and be loved by.

"Injuring Gwen financially is taking food out of the mouths of her animals. How can that be animal welfare?", asked the editor of the Hope Standard in a phone conversation with AAS.

We don't believe it is animal welfare. Nor was taking a healthy pet cruelty prevention or animal protection. So what was it? This question must be asked more often by the media and an answer demanded from government.