Saturday, April 17, 2010

Outing the local media: your lack of morals is showing

Some media people seem to forget that Twitter is publicly accessible. They should know better, don't you think? Their lack of morals is showing as well as their ignorance of social media. Nobody really cares what a local rag claiming to be political satire says, but people expect more of the CBC and the Chronicle-Herald.

Here are tweets seen today. Some are by friends of media people. Don't get me wrong:  people are entitled to their opinions. But I can't help noticing, there is no monopoly on heartlessness.













  1. Smiles_normalJohn_Gillis RT @krisp131: Please, God, just make this story go away. RT @chronicleherald#Brindi not aggressive, trainer tells Halifax court http://ow.ly/1zrbP



For all the lovely detractors I am blessed with...

This is for public knowledge: Bob Ottenbrite, the best-known trainer in Nova Scotia whose obedience course Brindi passed, said repeatedly in small claims court on March 23 that he would "love" to see Brindi come home to me and would love to work with us then. He said she is a GREAT DOG and can achieve great things. And he told me before witnesses outside of court the same day that he is CERTAIN that I won't let anything ever go wrong with Brindi again if she gets her back.
And he said in writing, which I gave to the court, and which the prosecutor did not refute or question, that he will work with me if the judge gives me my dog back.
The fact is, Bob Ottenbrite has never said anything in public against me getting Brindi back, and he swore this to me that night in March. He also vehemently claimed that he has no contact with the SPCA about Brindi, and no knowledge of comments on the internet, including the ARPO group's circulated statements about him refusing to work with me. His comments to the press about a new home were a way to appease the city. He has failed to save dogs in the past when he tried to help owners, like Thomas Roberts, whose dog Baby was destroyed after a single incident occurred. Bob simply believed his proposal to rehome Brindi might increase Brindi's chances of staying alive - it was more a sign of his lack of faith in the system than a lack of faith in me. The press never asked him a question that would have made this clear.



Here is the video that was shown in court yesterday, with footage of the assessment done on April 8, 2010.

The minority out there - a small but loud and persistent minority that has been seeking every chance to discredit me - continues to spin every fact in a way that avoids questioning the city of Halifax. The fact is, every trainer that has commented on the story, and the two trainers who have assessed Brindi, plus the trainer that helped train her, ALL oppose euthanization.
It is likely as well that none would have recommended a muzzle either. The two that assessed her did recommend a muzzle but this is because the order already existed, not because it was suggested by their direct observations from the evaluation. It is not true that they can be legally held liable for the behavior of a dog at some point in the future: they cannot bear responsibility for this, only the owner can, in the eyes of the court. However, they are understandably concerned about their reputations as business people.
This should concern people greatly. Trainers earn their living like everybody else. 
Ultimately it is not about the dog, but about business.
The problem is that the law does not contain any criteria or prescribe anything about when a muzzle is called for. Everything is left up to the discretion of animal control employees who are themselves not required to possess any training whatsoever.
And it seems that Halifax is content with this situation. 
Gary Lunn, who does animal control in the Windsor/Hantsville area, has a very low opinion of animal control in Halifax. When I spoke to him a few weeks ago, I was shocked to hear that he has put down only six dogs in his twenty years of experience. I knew Halifax has killed 31 dogs since 2007, and that it is a very high number for such a small city. The Hants area is smaller, granted. But they continue at this pace, in twenty years they will have killed over 210 dogs! Also, with the exception of two known cases, one of which was challenged but lost in court, no judge was involved in these 31 killings. The likelihood is that Animal Services told the owners that they had only one option if they wanted to save their dogs: to hire a lawyer at great expense, while dogs would be kept in the pound for the duration, which could last months or years, without being able to see them. Confronted with this, the owners sign the dogs over to the city for extermination, believing it was more humane.
When he came to my house the time he said he'd fine me (which he later arbitrarily changed to a muzzle order), the animal control officer Tim Hamm told me that the pound was a terrible place, and the dogs were rarely walked - i.e., prepping me for the next time when he would seize Brindi, so that I'd also be willing to sign her over as well. Wrong.
The letter announcing euthanization had been booked for Brindi that he handed me on July 24, 2008, as he prepared to seize Brindi, advised me I could also hire a lawyer if I wanted to oppose it. 
However, it should now be painfully obvious that the city not only refuses due process to dog owners in this predicament; it has no intention of ever allowing an owner the chance to get a dog back, even through the courts. In fact, I believe no owner has ever succeeded. 
The city simply does not entertain the possibility that an owner could or should get the dog back, whether or not it made a mistake. Its infallibility is insured by the possession of absolute power (thanks to a bad law) and an inexhaustible supply of taxpayer money.
Left to their own devices by the mayor and the elected council, Halifax city staff devote all their energy to preventing an owner from even getting into court. The animal services staff do this by intimidating them as I described above, and the legal staff do this by refusing to listen to anyone about the case, including trainers, and by delaying the proceedings as much as possible, should they actually file suit. I refer to the six months it took to get to the supreme court - three months were sheer blocking by HRM - and to the use of charges to get a judge to issue a kill order as "an additional penalty" - i.e., not as a means of insuring public safety against an incorrigible animal. This is not about animal control. It is about the relentless march of power - which is most absolute, it seems, at the municipal level.
The irony is that when I managed to find the secret location of the animal services office and tried to reason with them, supervisor Lori Scolaro told me that if I could get the law changed, things would be different and Brindi would be free. Well, as you know, I did change the law, Lori. What about your end of the deal??
Instead, Lori was in court yesterday, advising the prosecutor what to say. Several times, she knelt down at his side and whispered something he should tell the judge, including a fiction that is just as repugnant as it is unlikely: that the 31 dogs put down were a matter of owners coming to HRM to ask them to take the dogs off their hands and put them down!!! I really, really hope the judge doesn't give any credence to such a sick way to wash the blood from their hands. No vet would put a healthy dog down for the city because a resident just asked it to.
The city's war against dogs is also ensured victory by the support, indirectly or directly, of the SPCA, headed by Kristin Williams, and of detractors like Joan Sinden, Angela Granchelli, Gail Gallant, Heather Morrison, and Wayne Croft, who are not strong enough to effectively challenge a city denying Charter rights, but see no reason not to defame a private person all over the internet and the media. For people like this, it is not "all about the dog", ever.


Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Indian Givers*

* No offense intended to first nations people; this is an old expression that actually refers to the powers that be, not the native people subjected to their mercy.


I have learned the hard way in the last year and eight months not to count on anything to work out, even the most definite and well-prepared things. But today Halifax went back on its word in a way that I never anticipated.


click on this image to see it larger:


In early December, HRM's lawyer, Kishan Persaud, agreed to allow me to have a vet go examine Brindi. He reconfirmed it several times since then. From then until early March, I tried to schedule an actual appointment twice, in fact, hoping to have results by the end of the trial, but to no avail. The vet went on vacation at one point, and also, the dates did not work out. I advised HRM that she can only do it on Mondays and Tuesdays, but both times, the SPCA (who was given the power to set the date) offered a Wednesday only. After the last failure, I had to turn my attention to preparing for the rest of the trial and on getting a new assessment, which became a saga unto itself and led to the delay of another month and a half. Once the third attempt at an assessment finally succeeded last week (barely), I came back to organizing the vet exam, and luckily my vet was available this week. By yesterday, I did all the necessary notifying and calling. 


Today, just before 2 pm, I heard from my vet that the pound said she could not do the exam. I told her I was sure it was a matter of lack of communication. I hunted down an HRM fax from January 6 that referred to the vet visit, thinking I would fax it to the pound. I also called the city to get them to tell the pound they had permission. That proved difficult, but I persisted until I was lucky enough to get the right human on the phone, only to learn that HRM is now refusing permission. They will not grant access to Brindi until and unless I get an order from the court - the Supreme Court. When I asked why the change was made, I was told there was no reason - in those words exactly.


The provincial judge decided in December and January, respectively, that she has no jurisdiction over anything when it came to getting a court order for this, or for getting visits, or for transferring Brindi to a place suited for long-term care. I do not fully understand this, as the judge obviously does have the power to kill my dog. As far as I know, the provincial court is supposed to have jurisdiction over all municipal matters, including by-law infractions. All I know is that the judge and the HRM lawyer agreed that I would have to go to the Supreme Court - even to get visis. This of course would require extra paperwork, a few more trips downtown, and several months of time to get on the docket, and who knows if it would work? The fact is, clerks and judges from the two levels of courts waged a fine tennis game for much of the time since January 2009, ever since HRM refused to give Brindi back. My lawyers were told various things and speculated various ways on which court to apply to, so nobody really knows. The city's action effectively put Brindi and me into no-man's-land. No due process is a given; but how can you even take action yourself, at your own expense, when nobody knows which court to go to?


It so happens that Brindi had another pancreatitis attack sometime in the last two weeks. She may have become ill again right after she was transferred to the new pound, but I don't know for sure. Nobody told me about the attack at all; I found out by chance. I suspected it, after I glimpsed her shaved paw in the video clips Bob Riley was able to take during part of the assessment. (He was not allowed to film all of the assessment, which reminds me of another thing HRM changed its mind about. I asked for and got permission for it to be filmed, all of it, well in advance, with lots of faxes involved. But when the day came, Bob was told he could film only the outdoor part.) Brindi's shaved paw indicated to me that she must have been on an IV recently - something only an attack, or possibly blood tests, would necessitate.


So I only heard about the recent attack of Brindi's illness, which she contracted sometime last summer while in the care of the SPCA, because yesterday, in order to arrange for the vet's visit, I called the new pound, Homeward Bound, and happened to ask about her paw. I was told that she had "tummy problems" and on further questioning, they confirmed that yes, it was pancreatitis.


They cannot possibly blame this one on me. Not that they could plausibly blame me for earlier attacks either, of course. This time, I know the culprits are the people working for the shelter and maybe the new pound - for certain, the SPCA staff gave her treats they were not supposed to. I know this because in the CBC radio documentary aired last Sunday, the shelter manager is heard to say this very clearly, laughingly. Never mind that she treated me like a criminal, without any proof, and on that empty basis, decided to prohibit me from seeing Brindi outdoors, so that they could watch me more closely, since it was all my fault that she got sick (not possible, according to my vet).


Re visits, in our telephone conversation a few weeks ago, the HRM lawyer, Kishan Persaud, led me to believe that visits would be possible at the new pound, as the SPCA was presumably the reason for problems before. The city has of course claimed that it was the reason for cutting off visits, but that makes it even less acceptable, because the city has no reason to cut off visits. There is nothing preventing visits, no law or rule or written policy anywhere.


The new pound operator was supposedly going to have a place for long-term care. This is good, because their facility in Burnside has a woefully tiny outdoor space for the use of all its animals, devoid of any organic surfaces or materials. While stray dogs that are picked up and deposited there by Animal Services may presumably be taken for walks, HRM prohibits walks for impounded dogs, so the only outside space they see is a fenced in area the size of about two parking spaces. This photo shows it at the rear of the pound, which is ensconced in a row of retail spaces in Burnside:




SO I got the above fax at 3:30 pm. The vet was scheduled to see Brindi at 2 pm, as I notified yesterday by fax. (I have to do everything in writing; they will not speak to me on the phone, regardless of the reason.)
This fax came after I called Persaud when the vet told me the pound told her they had no permission to allow the exam. I had to track him down at court, because he was not in his office; Tuesdays are court days. Rather than leave voicemail, which is truly "speaking into the void" (apologies to Adolf Loos), I called his assistant, who said she knew nothing about the visit or permission, or when Persaud would be back. She was kind enough to give me his cell number, though, and sure enough, he answered, since he was not before a judge at the time. When I asked about the vet exam, he said I was supposed to have gotten a fax reply today, and that he had dictated it this morning, blah blah blah. "Didn't you get it?" He also acted as though he thought the vet visit granted ("as a courtesy") already took place - a convenient lapse of memory on his part, I dare say. But when I rehearsed that history, he didn't change a thing. HRM goes back on its word without explanation, just as it did everything in this case without explanation. (I can't say I blame them for not explaining, because it would be a joke anyway, but still...)


What this does to my health, who can say, but it's not good. I definitely felt my blood pressure rise a few more notches, and my guts twist just a few more turns. I've been watching clips of Absolutely Fabulous on youtube to get back my peace of mind, fragile as it is. On a practical level, the calling and the faxing has wasted precious hours. Logically, and legally, and of course, in terms of the welfare of my dog, there is absolutely no reason for what HRM says in this fax. I am prevented from looking out for my dog's welfare, something I have good reason to be concerned about, as the facts totally back that up. But nobody cares. I tried to call David Hendsbee today, but there was a city council meeting and it went on all day and evening, including a closed, secret session. I tried calling police superintendent Bill Moore and the head of the legal department, Mary Ellen Donovan, about the vet visit, but neither of them were in.


I found out a few more upsetting things as well today and in the past weeks but I am too upset to post them now. One has to do with the case in New Brunswick and the issue of the city not having legal authority to hold Brindi. Another is that, according to the CBC, Homeward Bound promised HRM it would never speak to the press. But more on these and other things later.


At least the assessment is done, and it went well, as I knew it would, even though Brindi has been denied any contact (even visual) with other dogs since December 2008 (that's what I'm told, anyhow). And yesterday, Bob Ottenbrite, backing up what he said to me a few weeks ago in front of a judge  (his words, spoken vehemently and repeated variously, were, "I would love to see you get Brindi back, and I would love to work with you and her!" He also denied ever saying he was against me getting her back. Take that, ARPO and the Chronicle-Herald!) was kind enough to send me an email saying, "I will have no problem working with you and Brindi if the judge decides to give her back to you." 


Those are both very good developments. Whether they are enough to get Brindi back, remains to be seen. 


UPDATE: Superintendent Moore returned my call the next morning 9. I explained the situation and he said he would make inquiries about the decision on the vet visit and get back to me.

Monday, April 12, 2010

Letter from India

Lots going on, no time to blog about it quite yet. In the meantime, however, this was shared by Inez Rufus in India.

One thing's for sure: it's unlikely that the HRM councilors and mayor have ever gotten so many messages from so many far-flung places on every continent except Antarctica! Too bad they do not reply to the majority of them. Inez wrote to me that she has sent many emails so far, "but not one has even been acknowledged.

Inez Rufus  April 10 at 1:59am
Dear Mr. Moore,

I live in India and have been following Brindi's story from its inception. I am shocked at how the Candian legal system works!

Please let Francesca visit Brindi. Try and negotiate a resolution to this craziness so Brindi can go home to Francesca.

I own a dog and this situation would have sent me over the edge. Kudos to Francesca for staying in the game.

Please use whatever powers you have as Superintendent to bring this heart-rending separation to an end. PLEASE!