Affidavit Submitted to Provincial Court for Sentencing

Affidavit of Elizabeth Lindsay

I hereby affirm and give evidence as follows:

1.     I am Elizabeth Lindsay, a friend of Francesca Rogier, the Defendant in this matter.

2.     I reside at address withheld , Dartmouth, Nova Scotia.

3.     I have personal knowledge of the evidence sworn in this affidavit except where explicitly stated as based on information and belief. I state my belief of the source of any information I state herein that is not based on my own personal knowledge.

4.     I have been a pet owner in HRM for 30 years and am active in the volunteer and rescue community.

5.     In mid-June 2010, on or around June 10, I observed two of Francesca’s training sessions with Brindi at Belle Kennel in Porter’s Lake, which was conducted according to Court order. These sessions lasted for about an hour.

6.     During these sessions with Brindi, who I had not seen prior to these sessions, the dog impressed me as a friendly, good-natured animal weighing about 60 pounds. She responded to commands obediently and intelligently.

7.     Throughout the sessions, which took place in the pen designated for them, I was able to observe that Francesca was diligent and sincerely focused on completing the training as prescribed by court-approved trainer Susan Jordan.

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!

STATEMENT ON THE DECISION OF THE PROVINCIAL COURT

Released to local media June 26, 2012  

By returning total and absolute control of Brindi’s fate to HRM, today’s court decision firmly establishes that HRM is not answerable to any authority.

How is HRM to feign a sincere decision between adopting Brindi out, or putting her down? Ever since HRM seized Brindi after an incident in which no one was harmed, HRM has insisted she must die. Yet it has not conducted a single behavioral evaluation on her, and showed no interest in the results of the ones I commissioned. In fact, HRM blocked and/or attempted to sabotage them. But it failed.

HRM’s record of denying due process and procedural fairness was made clear in the Supreme Court decision of 2009. Yet no individual was ever held accountable, nor did HRM change its ways by amending even a single law or policy. It simply dug in its heels, refused to return Brindi, and retaliated by laying charges against me for an event that took place six months earlier. The pattern continued unabated.

HRM failed again in Court some 16 months later. Then it declined to cooperate with an order to allow Brindi to be trained at the kennel. After they blocked it for a month, I had to appeal to the media before HRM would comply.

Legal Opinion on the Issues

http://freebrindi.blogspot.ca/p/legal-opinion-on-issues.html