Beaverdell Dogs Fail to Respond to Treatment for Extreme Aggression

January 31, 2003. For Immediate Release: Ten of the dogs seized by the BC SPCA in a high-profile cruelty investigation last July had to be humanely euthanized yesterday after months of intensive rehabilitation failed to reduce their extreme aggression to humans and other animals. The dogs were among those seized by SPCA animal protection officers from Beaverdell resident Gaston Lapointe, who now faces two charges of cruelty to animals under the Provincial Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act and one charge of cruelty under the Criminal Code of Canada.

Robert Busch, BC SPCA Regional Manager for the Interior, says staff at the Kelowna Shelter and animal behaviour experts from the Society have conducted on-going behavioural assessments on the dogs to measure the progress of the intensive rehabilitation efforts. "I commend the Kelowna staff for their diligence and tireless efforts to help these animals," he said. "They have devoted months of work desensitizing the dogs to the numerous sights and sounds that they might encounter with a new guardian. Most of these dogs had little or no socialization prior to the seizure. However, even with all the staff's efforts, obedience training, and drug therapy, these ten dogs had little or no chance of overcoming their extreme aggression and anxiety."

Busch says the dogs have bitten staff on numerous occasions and continued to exhibit dangerous behaviours, such as lunging aggressively at small children and engaging in vicious fights with each other. "We have made every effort to rehabilitate these dogs using the best remedial tools available but we are not seeing the improvements we had hoped. The BC SPCA has a moral, legal, and ethical responsibility to ensure that the dogs we adopt into families are emotionally, behaviourally, and physically healthy and pose no danger to the community. It is heartbreaking for all of us here because we have worked so hard with these animals, but we simply cannot adopt out dangerously-aggressive dogs."

Busch adds that while several individuals and animals rights groups in the community have contacted the shelter and the media about taking the dogs, the SPCA could not ethically place dogs in families where a serious attack might take place. "We do appreciate their concern for the dogs, but we could not jeopardize the safety of these individuals or risk the animals being at large in the community," he said.

Thirty-eight other dogs seized from Mr. Lapointe have either been adopted, fostered, or remain at the Kelowna SPCA shelter for further rehabilitation and training.