Thank you for having the courage to actually step forward and speak up regarding these poor souls who have been suffering for a long time.

I know these dogs well and have been in the middle of the battle of helping them since the end of July when I was contacted by a concerned group of neighbours and citizens.

I can only write what I know and I’ll keep it in as short of form as possible as this story is very, very long.

This house is on the corner of a very busy main street through Oak Bay in Victoria. Right across the street from Royal Jubilee Hospital. The yard is made up of different chainlinked areas all around the house. The area the dogs are in is on the side of the house which is also the side of the busy street. No grass, just dirt. 5’ high chainlink with a double padlock on the gate.

There is a section in the front of the house that faces the side street that has 6 old empty dog houses all around it. Also padlocked. The side/back section which is actually a gravel driveway to the backside of the house is also double padlocked with a large chain around the gate.

There was never any indication of life in or around the house, that I observed, other than the dogs.

The male is a very large Husky. He has free run of the fenced area. He acts very depressed, pacing back and forth, walking in circles and for the most part very lethargic. He limps sometimes as though he has an injury . Once he got close enough to us we could smell a very bad stench which is typical in neglected dogs fed cheap food, or as though he has skin disease. He has a large plywood doghouse. At my first visit he just lay there and didn’t even acknowledge we were at the fence just a few feet from him. After a few visits he started coming to the fence for cookies and would take a pat on the head. After weeks of this our visits became the highlight of his life and it went from tail wagging, to running to the fence, to loud cries when we would drive away. I can still hear him and the pain is unbearable.

The female seems to be in much worse shape physically and mentally. She is chained up against the house on aprox 5’ of chain. She is filthy, matted, looks malnourished and is extremely terrified of everything. She belly-crawled with her tail tucked and tried to hide in the dog house. The dog house is south-facing so it gets the blazing sun directly on her in the summer and no protection in the winter. She acted as though she was starving and ate out of control when food was thrown to her.

I have been to look at all hours of the day and night to look for life in the house. 1am, 5pm, 4am, 10pm – you name it – I’ve been there. At no point were the dogs not in the yard, was the female off the chain, or was there any life in the house ie: lights on or car in driveway. A few of the woman I was contacted by work at the hospital and do shift work as nurses. They go past at all hours of the day/night also and have never seen the dogs not in the yard.

On August 24th after numerous phone calls and emails in the days prior, Ken Halliday of the Victoria SPCA went to inspect.

Marie H of Victoria, and another person, who made a complaint calls to the SPCA were told this by Halliday:

- The owner was there and is home every day at 3:00 to spend time with the dogs.
- The dogs are both in great health and see a vet regularly and he was getting a copy of the vet reports to prove this.
- Both dogs sleep in the house every night
- Both dogs eat top quality Eukanuba dog food and are fed and watered daily
- The female is only chained when the owner is not home because she can jump the fence and he really hates having to do this but it is for her safety
- The owner loves these dogs very much
- Both dogs are in obedience classes and get socialized with other dogs regularly
- The small dog house isn’t too small because it doesn’t get used because both dogs like to ‘cuddle’ together in the large dog house
- The male is 11 years old and has severe arthritis that is why he is limping
- The owner is going to put a truck canopy in the yard so they have bigger shelter
- The dogs were not in bad shape and had actually just come from the groomer

Another point regarding this is that more than one person said that both Halliday and Valerie Lykkemark, the Victoria SPCA manager, would not put anything in writing . One neighbor who sent an email complaint continued to ask Lykkemark what was going on and Lykkemark kept asking her to call her cell. The final email the neighbor said “can you please email me back what the exact reasons are that these dogs were not helped – I would like it in writing”. She never heard a thing after that.

Jenn Wagnor
Big Heart Rescue Society
harleywags@shaw.ca