Animal Advocates has been documenting the heartless cruelty of keeping dogs in garages for several years. It is a growing horror, one that is tied to ignorance or indifference to Canadians' abhorrence of cruelty to animals. Isolation is cruel; the opinion of experts has long said it is cruelty.

I personally have reported garage dogs to the SPCA and was told by several senior "Animal Protection Officers" that being alone in a garage is no different than being alone in a house. I was told that as long as the dog has light and toys that there is nothing wrong. Yet expert opinion has existed for a long time that says isolation is cruel and causes suffering.

Under the PCA Act, causing "suffering" is an offence for which dogs can be seized and the owners charged with cruelty. Yet, to the best of our ability to know, the SPCA has never done that. How many complaints of garage dogs does the SPCA get a year? We know that in Richmond especially, there are many garage dogs. Richmond's garage dogs are luckier than most because Richmond Animal Protection Society replaced the SPCA as animal control enforcers in 2007. RAPS, without the ability to enforce the PCA Act and with no bylaws against keeping dogs in garages to enforce, has had many successes in getting these dogs surrendered and rehomed.

After fifteen years of experience documenting neglected dogs AAS knows that many puppymill dogs that the SPCA "rescues" to great media fanfare, are happier than garage dogs (those who lived in the breeders' homes). It's time the mighty BC SPCA did something for single dogs in garages, even if they don't attract the media like puppymills do.