page M16 April 4, 1990. This Week

TOP STORY

Continued from Page 15
home. If you rent, the SPCA
wants a letter from the lan-
dlord saying the pet is permit-
ted

“Depending on the type of
dog, people can be refused,”
says West. “We're not going to
give an active, full-size working
breed of a dog to someone with
a small lot.

“We want to know what kind
of arrangements are going to
be made to give the dog exer-
cise, and if both people are
working, some special arrange-
ments have to be made to give
that dog the attention it’s going
to need.”

The questions aren’t always
greeted that well. “Some people
get upset. with us for asking.
And a lot of people get extraor-
dinarily upset if we say no.”

But West is emphatic that
the information is the SPCA’s
business and refusal its right.
“These are our dogs, they’re our
dogs. And if I don’t feel com-
fortable or my staff don’t feel
comfortable with the person,
then we're not going to let the
animal go.

“Sometimes death is a lot
more humane than the kind of
life you can sentence the dog to.
I've got a photo album of dogs
that didn’t get care they need-
ed. All you have to do to rein-
force your thinking that adop-
tion restrictions are necessary

is have a look through the
album.”

The photo album is a chroni-

DISPOSABLE COMPANIONS

cle of human unkindness to
animals — sometimes a result
of ignorance, other times of
twisted minds.

In it is a photo of a cat that
was held down and burned,
then impaled with a fire poker.
There are numerous photos of
dogs with ribs and hip bones
jutting out, as if they'd spent
time in some kind of dog con-
centration camp.

There's one of the recent pho-
tos, the one of a puppy that did
seven months of
growing with a
rope tied around
its neck. The rope
got tighter, the
dog got thinner
and the rope was
no longer visible
when the SPCA
arrived. The skin
was growing over
it.

“How can
somebody tie a
dog up with a
rope like that,
leave it for seven
months, watch
the dog get thin-
ner and thinner
and thinner?
There’s just no
way the owner of
the dog wasn’t
aware of that.”

There was the person caught
starving two different dogs,
two different times. The first
time, he was found guilty of
wilful neglect of animals and

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was prohibited from having
any for two years.“He went two
years, found another animal,
and did the same thing again.”
Most times, unkindness to
animals arrives out ignorance.
However, sick people who do it
wilfully are around. “I think it’s
probably more prevalent in our
community than people would
like to think,” West says. “It’s
hard for people to understand
an individual really going out
and inflicting cruelty on an

ONE OF Har many victims of wee the SPCA sees in its
investigations:

animal, but it is not uncom-
mon. It really isn’t.”

Proving the “wilful” part in
court — a requirement to suc-
cessfully prosecute under the
Criminal Code — is another

SPCA Photo

thing. “These cases are ex-
tremely difficult to proceed on
because your very best witness
can't give_evidence.”

Owners will say they didn’t
know an animal needed some
type of care, or they didn’t
know a medical condition
wouldn't get any better. “That
can be your wilful out the
window,” says West.

Wilful neglect or abuse can
result in six months in jail —
but it doesn’t happen. “We've

never had anyone
go to jail for six
months in my re-
collection.” The
SPCA usually
sees. guilty hu-
mans pay a fine
of $100 or $200,
and staff usually
-hope for up to two
years’ prohibition
from owning an
animal.

“It doesn’t even

/ come close to
what we'd like to
see. There are in-
stances I would
like to see people
go to jail.”

There are those
who bring ani-
mals to death or
its brink out of

inhumanity. Then there are
those who kill them as part of
their work. At the SPCA shel-
ter, its a duty that’s rotated
among the eight inspectors to
prevent burnout.

Lynn West remembers trying
to decide which cats would be
put down when the shelter was
overflowing with them. “I

_couldn’t look at the cats and

make the decision. I had to
come out and look at the paper-_
work.”

Her husband Rick doesn’t
have that option. He shaves a
spot on Buddy’s leg. Kennel-
master Bill Frost gently rubs

the dog’s chin, and’ Rick West

sticks the needle in.

In a matter of seconds, Bud- :

dy’s eyelids slip shut over a
blank stare, and he slumps to
the floor by the drain. He gives

two little quivers. Frost feels —

for a pulse, and when there is

none, he and West hoist Buddy

into a bag, place him on the
scale, and 70 lb. of the ne

shipment is put in the cooler —
They're cleaning up when an.

inspector arrives with a merlin
hawk with a broken wing. The
bird-of-prey probably swooped
into glass, mistaking a reflec-
tion of itself or a small bird it
pursued for the real thing.
The inspector will take it to
the home of a bird-of-prey ex-
pert and leave the cage on the

porch, because the expert isn’t

home when phoned.

“Tf his dogs are out, bring it
back here,” Rick tells the other
inspector.

The Victoria SPCA — an
organization forced to kill more
than 3,000 pets last year —

will do its best to see that one ®

frightened little hawk survives.

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