I want every person and every "sanctuary" to know....

that Brindi is not material for a sanctuary or rescue... she is a dog that has excellent obedient training, is smart, affectionate, gentle, and good. This has all been well documented and analyzed by trainers and vets and presented to the court in testimony and prepared reports.

All of the assessments found the same things, including the most recent assessment carried out on June 13 specifically for the purpose of this trial. Brindi is not "dog-aggressive". She is not food aggressive. She is territorial - to some dogs, not every dog. She ranks on the very lowest level of the scale of aggression, meaning Brindi seeks to communicate, not harm.

Typically, she reacts to a combination of the dog and the person with the dog.

Brindi needs work on one issue and one issue only.

That issue is very controllable now, and can be trained out of her.

She is not a dog that should be locked away for the rest of her life. So please do not imagine even for one second that this is an acceptable solution!

Brindi deserves a good home and all the love in the world!

And Brindi has great basic obedience skills - everybody knows this. Why? Because I trained her diligently and consistently. Because I put off renovating my house for a whole year for her sake, in order to take her to classes  (a course that the Simms, who got my dog siezed, admit they began, but failed to complete with their own dog - it's too hard). Because I was consistent and kept drilling the lessons with Brindi.

And I put off my life for another four years in order to fight for her life.

I am called "irresponsible" and "unrepentant" by a judge who allowed inadmissible evidence to be heard in court and stretched out a trial from 2 days to five months, after it already took well over a year to begin.

A judge who did not properly keep track of exhibits and documents.

A judge who forced me to cross-examine two witnesses without hearing their original testimony - testimony which I later found out departed in significant ways from their previous statements.

A judge who heard reliable testimony from a dog trainer and even the HRM dispatcher saying that I am a very responsible dog owner who cares very much about dogs and who worked very hard to follow court conditions.

A judge who allowed witnesses to stray from questions and cut me short when I tried to get them to stick to the subject.

A judge who suppressed motions that I submitted, not even acknowledging one of them.

A judge who handled those motions and the entire sentencing process behind closed doors.

And a judge who refused to allow me to show video evidence and then based her determination of guilt on a remark such as "Even educated people know how to close car windows."

A judge who preferred to believe a witness saying "She stood by helplessly" and the fiction that the dogs simply stopped by themselves after ten seconds - in fact I acted immediately to grab my dog and get her to safety, as I did on another occasion that was documented in court testimony.

A judge who decided as fact that a woman knew phone calls were recorded, contrary to her own clear testimony, and the very content of those calls, which made it crystal clear that she did not know

.A judge who invented and circulated the image of "teeth sinking into fatty tissue" quite contrary to evidence - photos and vet reports - and claimed it took the dog took six months to heal from the wounds, which were superficial and small, too shallow to require treatment other than cleansing. 

A judge who called me unrepentant and irresponsible - yet is willing to say my dog can be "redeemed", yet gives the city the power over her life. 

Unrepentant? Is this about a sin, or a by-law conviction? 

I do not know if the word "repentant" is reasonable to apply to a by-law conviction. But remorse? As much as a person can be remorseful about an incident that happened unintentionally, you bet. I deeply regret buying a Subaru Legacy, I'l say that! Or maybe I am unrepentant because I defended myself in court? 

Irresponsible? Never. An irresponsible dog owner does not typically complete a challenging course in obedience before 70% of the class; or renew dog licenses year after year, keep her dog's vaccinations up to date, or voluntarily offer to pay for veterinary exams for dogs that were not even injured in a brief scuffle. 

An irresponsible dog owner whose dog is taken without being charged does not offer the city payment of fines, a dog run, more training, and more compliance with a muzzle that was issued arbitrarily.

An irresponsible dog owner would not go any further with training than the court ordered - or understand that training in a kennel will not address the issue of territoriality, and voluntarily continue training her dog after the court released it.

An irresponsible dog owner would not bother to fight for their dog's life at all, really. They'd go get another one, as a woman told me once who I consider an irresponsible owner - whose dog she didn't train, and allowed to be aggressive to my dog.

An irresponsible dog owner would have a tough time convincing any trainer to speak on their behalf in court, let alone a trainer and behavioral consultant like Susan Jordan or a vet like Dr. Kyra Larkin, both of whom expressed their opinion of me and Brindi in clearly worded, unequivocal statements to the judge. Or affidavits of support from dozens of neighbors, other dog owners, kennel owners, groomers. 

Did the judge read them? If so, it certainly did not show in her statement.

What evidence did the court have on which to base such a statement? Was it some of the smears from the prosecutor about me, like being "consistently" late for court and filing papers, both of which are untrue (whereas - who's counting, but in fact the Crown filed their sentencing statement after hours on the 5th of June, via email, and the supporting documents came 24 hours later). None of that was relevant to the issues before the court.

When I sit and wait for my turn in court, and watch this judge drop one charge and postpone another against an incestuous child molester, I have to wonder how it is that owning a dog that never bit a human or did any serious harm to a dog ended up ruining my life and hers so thoroughly. The more good evidence I produced, the worse I was treated.

And I sit in my house day after day, watching people walk by with dogs off-leash, up to three at at time; I know most of them are not licensed. I listen to dog howling and barking for hours on end all over the neighborhood. I hear them barking at people and cars. My dog never did anything like this.

And what this judge has now done by giving my dog to the city and telling it to decide what she was maent to decide in court is to effectively remove all due process, going backwards and forwards. The law gave her the power and the duty to determine whether to have a dog put down or "otherwise dealt with". The additional penalty law did not envisage a judge simply turning this decision over to the city, especially a city that has had its mind made up for four years - which the judge happens to know very well.

This judge has obliterated whatever ground I gained in the Supreme Court case in terms of procedural fairness and due process. And she has removed my ownership, and put Brindi in limbo all over again, plus insuring that she will be a full two years in the kennel - not a great kennel either, sorry - before any decision is carried out. A decision that will be made, like much of the trial, behind closed doors. We will likely never know what happens to Brindi. 

Whether they put her down or not, I have no reason to believe that HRM will tell the truth. It already lied so many times - about me, my house, and my dog - that there is no way to know. If they adopt her out, they won't want to publicize who gets her. And they won't be taking offers, that's for sure. But I can't even imagine that they will adopt her out, unless they are willing to stage very hypocritical drama of evaluating her (pretending it's never been done before, which it in fact has, four times, plus the vet, five, and as recently as June 13), and then saying "Oh, look, she's adoptable, now we can put her in a home!" More likely they will put her in a "sanctuary" to be caged the rest of her poor life. And the chances are equally good (bad) that they will go along with their own unyielding determination that she must be put down; why should they admit they were wrong?

Brindi has been locked up by HRM for nearly four years. She was in a no-kill shelter for two years. She is eight years old. She was remarkably quick to learn and adapt to my home, with two cats, and people and kids coming and going. I cannot bear to think of the years of confinement and now, being at the mercy of the same people who have wanted to kill her since July 2008.

How can any reasonable person come to such a decision??