I just got a call from a woman, one of the residents of the Capilano reserve. She gave one of her Shepherd cross pups to her cousin 9 or 10 years ago and he kept the dog all that time in a bedroom, seldom letting it out except to urinate and defecate. She lived next door and permitted this. Four months ago the cousin left the house and left the old dog in the yard. The woman fed it but did not bring it in her house. She left it out in the snow storms and freezing cold. She said she couldn't bring it in because she has cats. She said now it is dying and can barely move. I told her that the vets weren't open and I asked her to bring the dog inside since it couldn't now be a danger to her cats. She refused. I was telling her that I couldn't come and get the dog to take it to the vet until the morning when she hung up. She refused to answer my repeated calls.

I've had it with the silence around the way Natives treat animals.

The BC SPCA, including the West Van SPCA, has told people for too long that it can't go on a reserve without permission. This is absolutely false. The Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act permits the SPCA to investigate animal cruelty everywhere in BC, including reserves.

Of course it can't do animal control on reserves (or anywhere) without a contract, but when it tells people who report animal cruelty that it has to have a contract or permission to go on a reserve, it fools people into thinking that it can't go on reserves even to act on reports of animals in distress. It is time this avoidance of applying the PCA Act to cruelty on reserves by the BC SPCA ended! Perhaps it will take a concerted campaign of publicity by little organizations, with the help of the media, to expose all that is wrong.