-----Original Message-----
From: City of Vancouver
Sent: Wednesday, April 20, 2005 11:08 AM
To: 'Animal Advocates'
Subject: RE: COPE's refusal to take promised action on yard dogs forces women to steal dogs, entrenches cruelty to dogs, puts children at risk, creates bad P.R.

Thank you for your email which has been circulated for information to the Mayor, Councillors, City Manager, General Manager of Community Services Group, and forwarded to the attention of the Manager of Animal Control.

April 19, 2005

Mayor Larry Campbell and Council
The City of Vancouver

Re: COPE's refusal to take promised action on yard dogs forces women to steal dogs, entrenches cruelty to dogs, puts children at risk, creates bad P.R.

In 2002, the COPE slate of candidates said, "COPE does not support the mistreatment of animals and would ensure animal welfare laws are in place to prevent the prolonged keeping of dogs in yards, in pens, on chains, in garages, and in other forms of isolation. New Solutions. Fresh Ideas. Larry Campbell & COPE."

There are thousands of women all over BC who have rescued a dog from a chain or a pen, or a yard, or a pen or a garage. They range from young mothers on assistance in East Van to Shaughnessy matrons, from law-abiders to law enforcers. Yes, law enforcers. AAS has been approached by some police officers, asking us to remove a dog, and others who have admitted to stealing a dog and we know that some Pound staff steal dogs.

The City and the SPCA, by doing nothing, have forced women to risk the law and the wrath of a dog abuser, by stealing the dog whose suffering they are forced to witness. Does the SPCA or the City care?

AAS has told the City this many times since the first time we told it in our Report on Vancouver yard Dogs in June 2001. The Pound is phoned by citizens who are upset at the neglect and abuse of a neighbouring dog and they go to see if there are any infractions of bylaws such as no licence. We were told by Pound Manager Nancy Clay, that they report cases of neglect to the SPCA. When the SPCA does nothing, sometimes a staff member will go steal the dog and get it to a safe place.

The Pound get dogs as a result of drug busts, and sometimes they get a stray dog that is clearly abused and neglected, like a recent case of a Rottweiler found dragging a thick chain. The owner paid the fine and got his dog back. So some Pound staff went and stole him and got him to safety.

The City has not adopted a bylaw that would make it possible for the Pound to take some action for chained dogs, or to refuse to return dogs to abusers. Instead it held meetings with the SPCA after our Report was presented. These meetings were billed as between the City, the SPCA, and other stakeholders and critics. Yet the City and the SPCA excluded AAS, even though it was our report that triggered the meetings, and even though we were the only ones prepared to tell the truth about all the yard dogs in Vancouver.

We forced the City to let us attend, but what a waste of time it was! All that was accomplished was a lot of self-congratulation and back-scratching by a room full of lawyers, CEO's and Pound bosses all bent on sweeping it all under the carpet. Only one other person was honest, an independent lawyer who had made a lot of disturbing noise about the SPCA misusing the PCA Act to weasel out of helping these dogs, who suffer far more than most of the animals the SPCA seizes. But even she was wrong when she agreed that the PCA Act did not need improving, as recent events have shown only too terribly, as the SPCA abusively seizes healthy animals.

Also attending was Vancouver SPCA P.R. flak, Lori Chortyk. What did she know about chained dogs? She was there to control spin in case the media started snooping. She is still at the SPCA, spinning the media, but not as successfully anymore.

Here are the words and phrases that were batted about like verbal ping-pong at those phoney meetings: "Open". "Transparent". "Accountable". "Respectful dialogue". "Consensus". "Raise the bar". "Moving forward." "Education." "Cultural sensitivity." "Stakeholders." Every one of those is a red flag that avoidance and butt-covering is going on. And it did.

The SPCA promised the City it would "raise the bar" on chained dogs. It also promised to do "education". It did neither. The City didn't bother to follow up to see if it was doing either. Not even after Shenica White was attacked in December 2002.

Is the SPCA doing anything about yard dogs even now? The SPCA is so secretive there is no way to know. Questions are not answered or even acknowledged. And even if it were seizing yard dogs, it is so prone to kill "difficult" dogs that it is no blessing for a dog to be seized by the SPCA.

We have written the Board of Directors at the BC SPCA board@spca.bc.ca to see ask what the BC SPCA's action on chained dogs is, but we do not ever get an answer. The SPCA tends to quote the Five Freedoms instead of answering the question, but the Five Freedoms are P.R. puffery, not law and not action.

This issue isn't drug use, prostitution, or even panhandling. In other words, it is doable, not complicated. My questions is, why hasn't it been done? Who or what is preventing it behind the scenes? The Vancouver Police are even victims of chained dogs, one at least of which it had to shoot, earning it the outrage of Vancouver's dog-lovers. And yet, still the Vancouver Police advise worried citizens, especially the Chinese, to get a guard dog.

Something just does not add up. Citizens at risk...dogs suffering...citizens stealing dogs... the pound killing aggressive dogs... bad P.R....nothing positive.... nothing complicated. It is time to just do it - prohibit the keeping of dogs in yards.

I look forward to your earliest response.

Judith Stone, President,
Animal Advocates Society of BC
www.animaladvocates.com
604-922-1813