http://www.canada.com/victoria/timescolonist/news/story.html?id=9dfed05a-aa0a-4b83-a13f-b395b12bf235

Dog defenders need to lighten up

Jack Knox
Times Colonist
Thursday, October 14, 2004

The problem with vigilantes is they don't always get it right. There was the mob in England that damn near beat a man to death for watering his lawn during a drought, only to find he had merely attached a hose to his bathtub drain.

Also in England, the BBC reported a doctor had her house vandalized when vigilantes confused "pediatrician" with "pedophile."

And now, in Victoria, we have self-appointed dog defenders who, unhappy with the efforts of the law, are stealing supposedly abused pets from their homes. Trouble is, sometimes they screw up. Take the case of Ebi the Missing Malemute.

Ebi lives in James Bay with owner Jeff Delisle, though you can spot them all over town. They even began running together after the vet told Jeff that Ebi could stand to lose some weight.

But Ebi wasn't welcome when Jeff ran the half-marathon on Sunday, which is why she was left loose in the fenced yard. Imagine Jeff's dismay -- and if you've ever loved a pet, you can -- when he came home and found her gone.

For three days Jeff zombied around like someone who had suffered a death in the family -- until Wednesday, when a phone call located Ebi at a local veterinary clinic. Someone had dropped Ebi there, declaring her abused -- underfed and penned in her yard 24 hours a day without water. That's news to those of us who frequently encounter Ebi with her face in a bucket outside the coffee shop where Jeff works, which is where they could be found Wednesday, happily reunited.

It doesn't always end this way. A couple of weeks ago, a man who whupped on his misbehaving dog near Vic High got into an angry exchange with passersby.

It seems they then followed him home and scooped the pooch when he wasn't looking. "He's desperately looking for his dog," says Ian Fraser, who does animal control for Victoria.

The story isn't that rare. "I'm getting the feeling there are some sort of do-gooders in action," says Fraser. "People think they have the best interests of the dogs at heart and are going out and stealing them."

Several times in the last couple of years he has prevented people from taking animals. Not long ago Fraser was called to James Bay, where a dog had been left tied up outside Thrifty Foods for several hours. When he arrived, he found half a dozen people leading the animal away. No need to get involved, they told him, we've found it a new home. "I physically had to wrestle the leash out of somebody's hand."

Later that night came a panicked call from the dog's loving -- if absentminded -- owner, who had left the store by another exit and not remembered the animal until hours later.

Fraser enforces the city's dog bylaw -- barking, licensing, bites, that sort of thing. Animal-welfare complaints are supposed to go to the SPCA. But there's ongoing snarling between that organization and animal advocates who feel the SPCA isn't doing enough to protect pets. Fraser thinks some people are taking matters -- and dogs -- into their own hands.

Carol Sonnex, a member of the Greater Victoria Animal Crusaders, a group that focuses on spaying and neutering pets, has heard of local people spiriting away abused animals -- a desperate response to an inadequate animal-welfare regime. "A lot of times, people get very frustrated," she said. "Perhaps it's the law that has to change.

Indeed it does, says Hugh Coghill, the SPCA's senior animal-protection officer for the Island. Current law requires animals to be given food, water, shelter and physical care, but there's nothing that gives the SPCA power to force owners to relieve a pet's mental distress -- say, from being tied up alone all the time -- though Coghill would like to find a judge willing to push the limits.
"The laws need to be improved," he says. But Criminal Code changes have been stalled in Ottawa for years.

That leads to vigilantes executing their own code of conduct for pet owners. "What we've got here is personal opinion," Coghill says. "I can't enforce personal opinion." If he could, nobody with less than half an acre would own a dog.

It isn't just self-appointed pet police who are taking dogs. Sometimes well-bred, unspayed animals are stolen for profit. Sometimes people in the drug culture will grab certain breeds; Fraser caught a guy walking away with someone else's bull mastiff last year. "Sometimes people just don't want to pay for a dog," says Sonnex.

Coghill mentioned a particularly ugly motive: Ontario dogs are being stolen for use as bait in training pit bulls as fighting animals. Beagles, known for their docility, are a favorite target. "We're fairly confident that it does happen on the Lower Mainland." He's never heard of it on the Island.

The best defence against pet thieves, says Coghill, is microchip implants -- proof of ownership should the animal show up at a veterinary clinic or shelter.

As for Ebi, she will be spending more time indoors for a while. She'll hate it, being an outdoor animal, but Jeff is afraid the dognappers will return. Once people take the law into their own hands, you can't always be sure they'll apply it wisely.

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