NS SPCA Feb. 2009 Letter to Halifax Prosecutor: 'don't kill Brindi'

Some background:

The day after HRM seized Brindi in July 2008, on the advice of Hope Swinimer, I contacted the SPCA asking for help. The reply that came was a shock and a disappointment. 

The SPCA was HRM's pound contractor, collecting a hefty annual fee of $200,000 in 2007 that rose quickly to $400,000 in about two years (with no added services). 

HRM had taken Brindi to the Metro Shelter, and the SPCA did not want to jeopardize this money by making it plain to HRM that Brindi was not a dangerous dog by any definition and it could not cooperate by holding her or killing her on HRM's orders. The SPCA feared if they spoke up, the Municipality would drop its lucrative contract.In other words, the SPC did not want to do its job, the job it is statutorily empowered to do, its public duty, and its primary purpose as a charity: to protect all animals in this province. Not just those who HRM isn't hoping to kill. 

A clear and inexcusable conflict of interest that exists with every SPCA that contracts its services out to municipalities for animal control.

At a SPCA press conference in October of 2008, where I struggled to maintain my composure, the head of the board of directors told me to my face with a patronizing smile that they just could not help Brindi because it would mean they could not help other dogs. 

Meanwhile, the Metro Shelter staff steadfastly refused to let me or even my municipal councillor see Brindi, obeying HRM's orders blindly, even though there was no contractual or policy or legal prohibition against owner visits. 

All further efforts to get the SPCA to do its duty failed, though hundreds of kind and caring people called and wrote to say they were not going to donate a cent until Brindi was free. Public donations dropped considerably that year, but nothing happened. 

This letter appeared online seven months after HRM seized Brindi. The Municipality ignored it, consistent with its refusal from day one to even consider any alternative but killing. With the finality of a steel trap, city hall lawyers simply clamped hold of the arbitrary decision Lori Scolaro Tim Hamm - whom Canadian Forces had deemed a pathological liar - made two months before Hamm seized Brindi (documented in a May email message from Hamm). The same lawyers ordered the mayor not to help me, and forbid HRM councillors from discussing Brindi with anybody. 

The SPCA letter belied previous public statements claiming it had to remain "neutral" in the matter. And the endorsement of adoption, clearly implying I was an unfit owner, is simply evidence of the SPCA's displeasure with me for having the audacity to bring up its conflict of interest while trying to save my dog from death at its hands - because at the time, "irresponsible owner" was not the Municipality's position. No charges had been laid against me when HRM seized Brindi, and there was no suggestion or evidence that I was an "irresponsible owner" or that the seizure had anything to do with me. 

Not until the Supreme Court quashed the original "order to destroy" Jan. 2009 did HRM target me along with Brindi. The municipal prosecutors laid charges against me for practical reasons: they now needed a guilty verdict against me in order to persuade a judge to issue a new order to destroy. They were simply determined to carry out the plan to kill her no matter that they lacked any reasonable grounds and were total defiance of an expert assessment. The charges came on the very last day of the statute of limitations period - for not one, but three offences. All stemmed from the same short-lived, harmless incident, in which, for a few seconds, Brindi ventured across the property line at most a foot or two, and made no contact with another dog. That was the incident which they told the public left them "no choice but to seize and kill her".

So the slam against me in the SPCA proposal of adoption was a bit premature as far as HRM was concerned, while the timing was woefully late - as volunteers and staff had long since let it be known that they adored Brindi. Some directly contradicted the slam by praising me for doing such a great job training her. I guess so; I drilled all obedience commands with her every day for a year!! But this praise left a bad taste in my mouth, because while they reaped the fruits of my labor and claimed to love Brindi, I never forgot that they were ready and willing to put her down the second they received a command from HRM. 

The NS SPCA held Brindi for two years until I was able to finally get a judge to order her release. Within less than a year in its care, she had contracted severe pancreatitis, was put on IVs at least twice that I know of, and her teeth and gums fell into a terrible state of disease because they never gave her the beef bones that I regularly brought to the shelter (which they assured me she would get). And they evidently did not give her anything else to chew. Not to mention the weight gain and filthy condition they kept her in.

In other words, the NS SPCA was perfectly willing to lock up indefinitely and put down a dog it knew - and could be certain - was not even remotely dangerous, for the sake of money. Blood money. Who knows how many other dogs it put down without question, I wondered? But local self-proclaimed dog activists, instead of taking up this issue, as one might expect, failed to grasp the concept and attacked me, believing I was unfairly attacking the SPCA. They thought I should be grateful to them. 

The NS SPCA's actions and inactions harmed Brindi, and harmed me, more than I can recount in one place, harm that can never be undone. So this letter was not something I greeted positively. I was so terrified by the adoption call that I would not dare put anybody from the SPCA on the stand. 

Nevertheless, this letter documents the fact that the SPCA shirked its duty with regard to us. And it continues to do so: it knows HRM should not have been locking Brindi up for these past four years, and yet it has done absolutely nothing about it. 

I don't know if the problem is one of failing to understand the legalities - whether the SPCA officials could not or would not grasp that HRM could not legitimately abandon their contract over a case where the SPCA acted in its statutory capacity to protect an animal; or whether they cannot or will not see now, that HRM is in no way exempt from the Animal Protection Act.  

Either way, it's deeply saddening to me. The SPCA, which possesses the sole authority to protect animals in Nova Scotia, is the only group that can intervene directly, outside of court, without delay - sparing me the agony and expense of another court appeal - to save Brindi once and for all.