September 2011: Another Year of Hell.

Only ten weeks after a provincial judge finally let Brindi come home - when I was just beginning to come up for air, when I actually thought things were getting better, when Brindi's health was finally stabilizing, and when I still had some savings left - another inconceivably freakish incident happened. No more harmful than the others, but enough for the city of Halifax to use as an excuse to seize Brindi and put her back on death row. Hell. Absolute hell.

Where did it happen? At the foot of my driveway. What happened? There was a mix-up with the car, and she grabbed, or tried to grab, a dog being walked past my house. The owners were a youngish married couple I never saw before. It was a relief when they said they thought their dog was okay in response to my apology and question. But they ignored my desperate pleas and assured me they were going to report it. They did better: they called the RCMP. I begged them for Brindi's life. The reply: "I don't give a f--- about anybody else's dog but mine!"

Nightmare. Absolute nightmare, every single minute. I found out later the wife is a close relative of no less than five of the people who testified against Brindi in the whole long horrible trial. And the husband with her works for HRM - in the planning/permitting department. Nicely done.

It turns out there were some injuries - two cuts and a scrape. Treatment? First aid, recommended a vet the next morning. It also turned out that the couple kicked Brindi many times. I didn't even see this: it happened so fast, and it was very dark, and I focused on separating the dogs, who were whirling around in the darkness. How do I know they did it? They said so in voluminous written statements.

If you are genuinely afraid of a dog, and swear you are convinced she is dangerous, as they also stated - would you kick it at close range? Would you be frequently walking past its house, to "keep an eye on it"? Brindi did not snap at them, or jump on them, or do anything. She was focused on protecting her property against an intruder.

It was devastating for me, after all the time and effort - but still, it was no different than the garden variety stuff that happens every day in Halifax and countless other places around the planet. And it lasted all of 15, maybe 18 seconds.

That was September 14, 2010. They seized her September 27. Was I stupid to ever set foot again with her in Halifax? Sure. Did I honestly believe that a city that had lost twice in court and shamefully ruined my dog's health while illegally holding her for two years dare seize her ever again? No. Who could?

Now the "trial" is coming up in a few days. It was set for Nov. 8-9, well over a year from the incident. Why? Because back in December, at the arraignment, Nov. 8 was the first full day available in the provincial court. And all that time, Halifax continued keeping Brindi locked up. I have not seen her since. One visit was offered after five months - my vet and I agreed it would be more disturbing than helpful to Brindi (and me!); I already had the heartbreak of seeing her ecstatic and convinced I was there to take her home, and having to leave her, a brokenhearted dog, after the permitted 30 minutes expired. The 30 minutes that are stipulated by ad hoc rules made up just for us, among a slew of other rules (no photos, no talking to staff, no treats, no companions, no walking her, etc...) - break one, you don't get another visit, period.

All that time. The total amount of time that all these incidents took, if you put them end to end, could not be more than a minute, maybe a minute and a half. The number of incidents leading to injury: 2. The treatment for those injuries: not much more than first aid. In the meantime, Brindi, who was a robust and healthy spayed female in July 2008, now has chronic pancreatitis (with attacks of diarrhea and vomiting unless she gets enough exercise and the right food), permanent enamel loss, gum and dental disease, and weight problems. God only knows how she is faring. I don't get to see her; I can only comfort myself that she sees our vet occasionally. Not as frequently as we want; she must have been ill in the summer because they skipped a few dates and then turned up with another vet report that was scanty on details.

My chest aches just writing any and all words of this. I am feeling around for what to say and what not to say, so bear with me.



I had stopped blogging the previous February, just before the first verdict Feb. 23. I stopped not because here was nothing to say, but because I was afraid and at a loss of what not to say. The judge claimed she never read anything in the media, but who can be sure of what she heard or would be told?

Words cannot describe, words cannot describe, and I cannot emotionally handle the experience of seeing them on a screen... Yet another whole year in the "new" pound - a run-down kennel just across the Chezzetcook inlet from my own bedroom window - no visits, the longest time I've been separated from her


THE BLOG 

I shut down the blog - I was getting cyberstalked, cyberharassed, stalked in real space and time. It was too much.

I meant to catch up on the blog after Brindi was home - and I walked around, writing posts in my head, for months and months. I kept coming up with all kinds of important and brilliant posts, yet never could face doing it - it was just too difficult. And then not even after they took her again, after a supreme court  judge inexplicably declined juridiction (easy way to turn down an injunction request that cannot be turned down), after the city - failing to engineer it any other way, but terrified I might find a judge who would not turn in down - did a bureaucratic ballet to evict me from my house and try to tear it down in its Kafka-esque frenzy.

Who can blog during such a horrible time?? Not me. 

The horror of having a heritage house that you've got an excellent, approved design for, dealt with as if it was a slum tenement is bad enough. Being separated from your belongings and your sense of security in an eviction done for no good reason (emphasis on the word "good"), without a prior "Order to Remedy" or any warning whatever - that's a trauma not many have experienced. I was literally kicked out in minutes by a by-law officer (since promoted), who you never saw before in your life, with three RCMP officers standing on your lawn, ready to jump into action, I didn't doubt, at the slightest move. I returned two days later to find my water heater disconnected, which cut off the pump, and a cleverly placed stick in my well prevented me from priming it back up in time before the pipes froze. Of course, not being able to use the house meant frozen pipes for months - and four bursts by spring, all of them inside, not underneath, the house.

The frenzy to block any kind of fairplay at all has not stopped: in fact, it's even worse. 
This strange concoction of a city, this oxymoronish "regional municipality", is on to its next, and it hopes, final move to not only get rid of me, but complete the task of rendering me penniless, jobless, reputation-less, and dog-less. How? by using the cost of a fence that it had no reason to erect around my property, and of a few plywood boards that it put up to keep me out after having no reason to evict me, as a way to seize my property once and for all. The total: $10,000. Yes, they issued a lien for this amount, in fact, two separate liens, and told me about this in the summer. Do I want to dispute it? Fine, they had an HRM employee review the matter - without my involvement, and on their payroll. Guess how that turned out? You got it.

As if that was not bad enough - I mean, after all, a lien means you can't sell the property until it is paid off first. I'm not planning to sell; even if I were, the place is far from being marketable and it will be some time before it is. So a lien is a problem, but not my immediate problem. But it is.

Apparently, liens are not liens in Halifax: they are not registered with the deeds office, for one thing. The amount just turned up on my tax bill. And with it, a 15% annual interest rate. By the time I got the year's second tax bill, there was $243 interest on it already.

The joke: the by-law allows the city to seize and put up for sale any property with an outstanding tax bill - after twelve months. That puts me into next June to become homeless - again.

I have not had the courage to tally up what the amount would be by then. The actual property taxes come to less than $1000. There are a bunch of other unfamiliar charges as well. I could not decipher any of it; and it's been quite a circus just trying to get somebody on the phone about it.

To fight this, I will have to go back to Oct. 8, 2010, and begin deconstructing every evil-minded action that led to this outrageous situation, and blocked me from appealing it along the way. That will take months and require far more anal retentiveness than a body could possibly muster. So it will probably not succeed as well as it should. And in the meantime, the interest will mount.

BUT FIRST! I have to do what I swore and believed I would never have to ever ever do again, namely, FREE BRINDI!!

The amount of time that the number of incidents lasted, if you put them together end to end, probably don't amount to more than sixty seconds.

Did I only focus on my house in the whole past year? Hardly. Even though the blog was shut down, I still did all I could humanly manage. I passed all kinds of tests for PTSD symptoms, but because of my status and my limited finances, can't do much about it - and anyway, the trauma is far from over. You can't recover from something that doesn't end.

In December 2010 I went to the prosecutor, a young woman who was still in law school in Toronto when they first took Brindi. Not unlike the woman lawyer HRM used to block me from challenging the eviction order and then the demolition order - she was on maternity leave during the trial. Not that this excuses either of them from their willingness to bludgeon another woman with absolute power.

I asked the prosecutor what it would take to release Brindi pending the trial. This was even before I knew just how far away the trial would be.

I  offered to plead guilty to the three charges (disobeying a muzzle order, owning a dog that attacks, owning a dog that runs at large), in exchange for their return of Brindi, either:
- to me, pending trial, with the previous conditions in place (muzzle order, dog run, training)
- to a foster home, pending trial
- to a permanent adoptive home, forever
and, for good measure, I offered to leave HRM forever, if they would simply return my dog so I could take her with me.

The answer to each and every one: NO.

The reason? The municipality thinks she is dangerous and should be put down. Why her, why not dozens of other dogs that are reported for fighting with other dogs? Well, we have this remark that the judge put into her ruling, and we believe it is enough to have her put down. Really? And that is the  judge that ordered Brindi to be trained before being released from the kennel. We must return to court no later than August, she said.

But, when the training was done - and in fact, more thoroughly than anybody would imagine, I can tell you - the same judge suddenly wasn't worried about having the trainer appear in court to certify it, so she could officially order Brindi to be released.  In fact, she was so unconcerned about that part, that she instructed her clerk to fax the hired prosecutor (the $14,000 prosecutor) to tell him that if HRM was satisfied that the dog run was secure, they could release Brindi that same day.

That day??? No court appearance???

I was meeting the trainer at my house that morning, to show her the dog run and talk about the next steps we would take once Brindi was home. We never expected that she would come home that day! She and I just sat there looking at the fax. How could this be? I get a call from Animal Services. Lori Scolaro, sounding sweet on the phone, was enough to knock me off my block. They faxed the kennel. I showed up a few hours later - it was so impossible, we got distracted - and only I and the kennel ownere were there. No animal services person to do the honors. No press. It was Friday afternoon. All I could do was pick her up, muzzle on, and go buy a bottle of champagne. A kind couple - who recognized us - graciously held her leash for me while I went into the store. (I'll dig out the photo and post it later, with some others.)



But things were different last September.
From then on, the city was back at it: pursuing its goal as it if were a major criminal case.

Only it is not a criminal case. Which means that I am not entitled to legal aid. Even so, there are precious few lawyers ready to go up against HRM, and legal aid lawyers are doubtless not confident about doing that. There are no animal law practitioners in the province. And

Not being a criminal case is fine with me otherwise of course - but it also means a lot of uncertainty - which rules and procedures apply? The same rules for criminal proceedings? The city seems to think so - except when it comes to things like testimony and rules of evidence. Dog cases are more he said-she said than evidence-based; and testimonies can really be pretty wild. Last time, the man whose report led to Brindi's seizure changed his story several times - first there was no injury to his (mom's) dog, then there was, then there wasn't, etc. The city managed to somehow fail to interview the one truly impartial witness, and when I brought him in to testify, the judge dismissed his testimony by assuming that we had some professional ties. (I am an architect, he is an electrician; that's about as far as it went at the time. I had met him, but never hired him to do any work.)

Last time, HRM also dragged in people who had never filed a report: you could not do that for a criminal case against a human. It also used some pretty questionable things to obtain the seizure warrant. That's consistent with the first seizure warrant, at least, which reads like smoke and mirrors: a neighbor supposedly reported that Brindi attacked people four times. Never mind that there were no names, dates, or reports filed for those incidents. The justice of the peace who signed that seizure warrant had no reason to doubt it, apparently. But it was false.

I probably should not comment on the things the city is now doing that are not exactly kosher with the criminal code as it pursues this case. Except one.

And here it is: All this time, and in the first two years, Halifax has held Brindi without the proper legal authority. Okay, you might say for six months - three and three. Why? Because the criminal code and provincial law both require that seized property be returned after three months. The only way to continue holding it is with a court order. And the only way to get a court order is to claim that the property is needed for evidence in a legal proceeding.

Brindi is not evidence.
 
Because Brindi is not evidence, it is highly unlikely that the city could not get a court order to extend its powers to hold my property, aka Brindi. In any case, it has never attempted to do it. Nor, for that matter, has it done anything to amend By-Law A300 "Respecting Animals" since the supreme court quashed part of it in the case that was supposed to send Brindi home. (The same by-law that brought you the cat licenses, which the council was quick to change after a public outcry.)

The criminal code and the provincial law - known as the Summary Proceedings Act - both supersede municipal by-laws.

I am not a lawyer. I have never played one on TV: I have never considered becoming one for a second. But I do know how to read, so you can take my word for it: the city is in serious breach of the federal law. Maybe now you can begin to understand why it was so important for them to evict me and tear down my house.

I am just a person who believes in fairness and equality, law and justice, and the rights granted by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, akin to the US Constitution.

I am a person who believes that animals have a right to life.

I am just a woman worked like hell to train and care for her dog, a dog that did not ever bite a human or try to, a dog that never did any serious harm to another dog, and got along pretty dandy with 98% of the dogs she met... including feisty shitzus, by the way.

I am a middle-aged woman, just like Brindi was when this started, going into old age, like she is. She's seven now, going on eight. She's graying at the muzzle, I see from the vet's photos. Her beautiful black velvety muzzle. And just like mine, I don't doubt that her body aches from lack of exercise and the loss of a steady dose of unconditional love. 


Brindi is not evidence. Brindi is not a criminal. Neither am I.  


 She is a dog and deserves a home and a life. Period.