[wolf_has_wandered]

Town denies euthanizing woman’s dogs because she’s on welfare

By JENNIFER GRAHAM The Canadian Press
Sat. Apr 26 - 4:47 AM

REGINA — Like many communities across Canada, the town of Wolseley, Saskatchewan has rules for dog owners.

The bylaw covers things like barking and how long the town will care for an animal when it’s found running loose.

And officials in town of 860 say it’s that bylaw they were following when they found and destroyed a poor woman’s three dogs.

"We do not like to euthanize animals of any sort," former town administrator Gail Blaney said Friday. "That’s sort of the last resort."

The case has ended up in front of a human rights tribunal.

That’s because Jacqueline Nash claims town officials killed her dogs because they knew she was on welfare and assumed she couldn’t pay the fees to get the animals out of the pound.

The purebred German shepherds were picked up at a restaurant by animal control officer Leanne Shirkey in June 2005.

Shirkey said they were a little dirty and missing some fur, but friendly. She took the animals to the pound, which was at the town garage.

Nash said she spent five frantic days searching for the animals and was devastated to learn they’d been destroyed.

But Blaney told the tribunal Friday that no one called to claim to the animals.

She said she was simply following the bylaw when she scheduled a time to have the dogs euthanized. The bylaw states that the animal can be destroyed if the owner doesn’t come forward within three days.

"I had booked the appointment but was hoping to never have to follow through with it," Blaney testified.

"It was not cut in stone."

On Thursday, Nash testified that she had called Blaney the day after the dogs went missing and was told the town office had nothing to do with strays. No one, Nash said, had seen her dogs or could tell her what the town would do with stray dogs if it found them.

Blaney said it "crossed her mind" that the dogs might be Nash’s but added she couldn’t be 100 per cent certain.

"I didn’t know whose dogs they were. They were black dogs, they had no tags."

Blaney said a co-worker made one attempt to call to Nash, but the phone number was no longer in service. However under cross examination, Blaney also said that town councillor Richard Banbury later told her not to call Nash.

Banbury was scheduled to testify late Friday afternoon.


© 2008 The Halifax Herald Limited

[RooZoo]

Quote

To paraphrase:

Hmmm, town dogcatcher captures dogs. Town officials euthanize them in less than a week.
Supposedly ex-town admin never heard from woman.
Woman says admin said "Town office doesn't handle stray dogs at all."
The town admin says "it crossed my mind they might be that woman's dogs."
That administrator was the one that set the appointment for the dogs to be euthanized.
The town admin said she instructed an employee to call the woman, but could not reach her.
Employee that supposedly called woman says "Councilman specifically told me not to call her."

Wow. If I were a more trusting fellow of government, I'd say it was morons in action.
Instead, what it looks like is at least two city officials were in on stealing and killing the woman's dogs. Now they're trying to cover it up as "It's just business as usual. We had no idea." Seems that at least one employee though admitted on the stand that another offical told them NOT to try contacting the dog's owner. Nasty situation.

The other shitty part is that I know nothing will happen to the city officials. At most, the woman's loss will be paid for by the city with a few dollars and that will be that. I'm especially sad for the dogs. The dogcatcher said they were friendly too.

[Woofy Dog]

wow, stupidity at it's worst. Not only did they cause emotional pain to a human, which we humans always seem to think is bad, they murdered 3 inosent dogs as well. I'd like to hear those bastards give a good reason to have done such a terrible thing, because honestly, there's no good reason to have done what they did. Animal murderers will YET again go unpunished. I bet those officials won't even be sacked for their behavior.

[wolf_has_wandered]

The way I read it, they heard complaints from 'good property tapayers' about the dogs roaming, and did a bunch of 'sure, we'll take care of it' stuff with 'em, then did. She didn't rate because she was from the wrong side of the tracks.

[Tervicz]

Here in Belgium it's standard practice to tattoo or implant a chip into dog with the owner's information. It doesn't mean fraud and misuse are out of the world, but a mistake is unlikely. First thing police will do is check for that and then trace the owner, possibly handing the owner a fine if the dog did any damage or was a disturbance. Tag your dog! And tag it in a way which is hard or nearly impossible to remove with all information they need: name and address. If the police doesn't check, they're accountable. If you don't tag, you'll never be able to blame them.

[Raska]

:( ugh thats sad... i almost had a similar experience. i wont tell i here but it saddens me to see that kind of stuff happening...

[buck]

wow....that is um.......i cant even find the words for this, its beyond stupidity

[NeedAnEar]

Ok, I'm probably in the minority, but this woman was NOT taking care of these animals and I'm not happy with the biased slant of this story. It sounds like the dogs were put down not because she was on welfare, but because she wasn't taking care of them and they had no way of keeping them indefinitely.

The dogs were roaming around, they were found at a restaurant, they were dirty, they were missing hair... if they were at the restaurant were they looking for food? why were they dirty, unkept, uncared for? And this woman spends FIVE DAYS looking for them (so she claims), instead of contacting animal control first, or at least by the second or third particularly? There is no way she did not know the dogs were wandering.

Would this be allowable if the dogs were human children wandering around, dirty, unkempt, unfed, basically feral? At least human children aren't killed, but who's to say that this woman's neglect wasn't a form of slow death for these animals?

If you can't take care of an animal (just like if you can't take care of a child), you have no business owning one, let alone several.

Her unhappiness (and again, I'm probably in the minority in believing this) is strictly of her own making. Those dogs died because SHE was not taking care of business. Bottom line. Period. No one stole those dogs out of her yard. Her being on welfare is no excuse for not keeping those animals in a clean condition, in a safe condition.

The town elders were absolutely wrong to pay lip service to their own laws. But she needs to own up to her part in these innocent animals' deaths, instead of whining that waaaaaaaah my dogs were euthanized because I'm on welfare. This sad affair did not happen in a vacuum.

p.s. what difference does it make whether the dogs were purebred or not? ;)