This provocative post title is referring to the threat that Bob Ottenbrite reported to the papers, and the threats I am receiving on a daily basis, variously telling me to leave the country, that I'm a liar, that I'm breaking laws, that I will be surrounded in the courtroom by menacing faces, and generally, that my middle name is trouble. A few threats have been carried out. Thanks to a caller who later bragged about it online, the power company nearly cut my electricity last year, and my house was nearly condemned. Neither could happen, thanks to the fact that things are in order here. But both were pretty upsetting.
So I totally sympathize with Mr. Ottenbrite.
I wish nobody would send threatening messages to anybody. I usually prefer not to mention or post mine; why ruin everybody's day? Unlike others, I have no way to avoid getting more of them, for the simple reason that they can choose to walk off, but I am fighting to get my dog back alive.
Reading the papers here, one might get the impression that there are torchlit meetings of mobs who want Brindi to be let go, who then go off shooting notes to dog trainers using flaming arrows or something like that. What a joke. If only they knew that dedicated Brindi supporters are very busy living their lives, having biopsies on their lungs, or birthday dinners with their 79-year old mothers; looking for a new job, organizing charity functions, or about to have their first child. They are just not the threatening-letter types. Nobody has the energy to get hysterical. I don't know about the ones who send
me threats, though; they seem to have endless energy!
This is not about threats, this is about love.
I love my dog, and she loves me. To me, that's where it begins and ends, really. A lot of people seem to feel Brindi coming home is important to them, and I believe that's just because it is how they feel about their dogs, and they are responding for this reason alone. That is their message: most people who love dogs feel that others who love dogs deserve to have those dogs with them if at all possible. I do agree with their point of view. Close to half of people in Halifax own pets, so that's got to be a lot of people with that point of view.
Legally speaking one might argue that people who love their dogs should have them, perhaps to the extent that the dogs do not present a danger to the public, let's say as a reasonable standard, relative to the top causes of accidental death and injury . Since lighting strikes cause approximately 16 times more fatalities on average than dogs cause (don't quote me; I've linked to this earlier), most people would not be at risk of authorities taking their dogs.
It would be so nice if dogs never bit people
or other animals anywhere. But because they sometimes do, and humans are the ones ultimately held responsible for it, it's good there are laws and rules. I cringe at stories of any dogs chasing cyclists or jumping on kids or shaking kittens or worse. I am so glad for Sophie and Karen Short in New Brunswick, but the story behind it really takes me aback, wondering why a dog would behave that way.
I believe I have shown that Brindi is significantly different.
I am glad my photos and videos and stories helped people fall in love with her who never met her. Of those who have met her, I am glad so many spoke up. Now the SPCA is agreeing with them, even if they are spinning it their way, which is less nice (I spouted about this earlier...). The bottom line is that they are now saying what I tried to convince them of over a year and a half ago; they changed their official position from "we can't comment, we have no say," to "Brindi should go to a good home." She has a good home, with somebody who has stopped you from putting her down, and I'd like her back now, please! Yes, the SPCA have had her longer, and doesn't everybody now agree that this has been so needless?
So nobody is more pleased than I am that they like her.
Thank god Brindi really is such a nice dog, or what would they be saying now if she did have so many "issues"? I just am so frustrated all the same, because I don't understand why they couldn't have done right by her long ago and saw to it that she was returned - at any point: after seizure, after the supreme court case, etc. Instead, it was, after the supreme court ruling that they began agitating for her to be rehomed in letters to HRM.
Brindi is my family.
We walked, ate, and slept together for 13 months, with my Rudy and Amelia. She would not be alive today if I didn't love her so much. HRM is requesting to put Brindi down. It is my request to get her back. That's what the judge will hear from each side. Since so many are now saying she should not be put down, I'd think the job of saving her life should be easy. But that's no consolation.
What would it mean if HRM puts forward any alternative but "euthanization" (euphemization) in court?There is no viable compromise as far as their position is concerned. Even the mayor has vowed to get Brindi off the streets.
If HRM suddenly shifts gears, it will have completely contradicted what it has been seeking all along - by their own admission on many occasions, including on the stand. Killing Brindi is the only reason why officials ever laid charges.
And what would it mean for HRM to contradict itself? It would mean it has wasted everybody's time, a lot of money, and a huge chunk of Brindi's life, for no reason at all.
In any case, if someone writes a letter to the Mayor expressing their feelings and opinions on the matter, it is because they have their own feelings and opinions to express. At the same time, I am grateful to those speaking on my behalf, provided they do so peacefully.
On the home front: it seems that the eastern shore has little time for concern about Brindi, if ever she was a concern. My neighbors tell me we've been overtaken by a band of wild coyotes for some months already. Walkers are accosted, cats are missing for months now, and a dog had to be put down after a coyote tore its face off. Calls have been made to HRM and the Ministry of Natural Resources.
It makes me worry about Amelia. I need my dog Brindi for protection... !!!
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