omnes © "ther press >>> OPINIONS Policy Schmolicy: Rules Fail to Help Animals Erin Culhane Opinions Editor For as long as | can remember I’ve been in love with Great Danes. And if | had a bigger vehicle, a bigger house, a bigger wallet, | would have one for my very own. | don’t often see this giant breed, but when | do, | stop my car, bike, or whatever I’m doing, to take a clos- er look at what | consider to be one of the most beau- tiful dogs in existence. Sigh...one day. Now you can imagine my excitement when | spotted two Great Danes—a fawn and a harlequin (white with black splotches)—prancing in their pony-like glory in the park last week. | dropped everything and rushed over to them as they made their way to the kids’ play- ground. The two giants towered over most of the children and were being admired and patted by everyone near them. As | got closer, | noticed they weren’t wearing collars. Still closer and | heard the concern in the voic- es of the people gathered around the dogs. "He must have been hit by a car," said a woman. "I don’t know, look at his ribs—he’s malnourished," said another. "He’s all bloody on his back end." They were right—the harlequin Dane looked sickly, although his face was a picture of perfection. There they stood—thousands of dollars’ worth of dogs with no owner, no identification and a growing crowd of con- cerned people. While we waited for the SPCA, a woman named Lisa gathered some sausage rolls and cheese puffs for the pair. The fawn showed no interest, but the skin-and-bones harlequin snarfed the food down like he hadn't eaten in days. One lady in the crowd said, "| heard the owners let them out all the time. The dogs like to be around peo- ple so they just let them play here." Shelly, the caretaker for the Maple Ridge campground wasn't surprised. She said people drop off dogs and cats often. "Once someone left a chicken in a box outside the washrooms. He was obviously a pet." She said recently a cat was dropped off with her litter of kittens. "Three days later the mamma was badly injured and the kittens were gone," she said, adding, "I really worry about the dogs being hit on the road." When the woman from the SPCA arrived, she came over with the leads and said, "Okay, who's taking who for a walk here?" She was no stranger to the dogs. One of the concerned women in the crowd asked, “Do his owners really drop the dogs off here and leave?" “Well it’s not cheap for them. They have to pay to get them out every time." When we raised concerns about the health of the harlequin, she told us he’d had a stroke last year and that he was 17. "He’s just really old," she said. Okay, there were so many things wrong with this situation, | didn’t even know where to start. First | called my _ veterinarian sister-in-law Leslie. "Seventeen? That’s impossible," she said. "They’re geriatric by the time they’re eight." She thought his symptoms might be from a flea allergy. Next | got in touch with Lorie Chortyk, the SPCA general manager for community relations, and asked her straight out: "Why are these people get- ting their dogs back?" She answered, "We’re obliged to follow municipal bylaws. The bylaws state that unless the animals are in critical distress we have to give them back. | can guarantee you that every time they come they get a lecture, but we can’t keep their animals." Chortyk said the dogs have been picked up by the Maple Ridge SPCA five times since March 2001. SPCA employees would probably have more luck instructing the dogs on how to drive themselves home than getting through to their owners, who clearly choose to ignore the lectures. "The owners let them loose on their property, they get out where the acreage isn’t totally contained and they end up at the park," said Chortyk. As for the age of the harlequin, she said the SPCA didn’t have his age on file, so she didn’t know where the number 17 had come from. She reiterated, "Unless the animals are in critical distress we don’t have juris- diction." Diane Merenick, the District of Maple Ridge bylaw services supervisor, confirmed what Chortyk had said. But after reading the entire "Maple Ridge Dog Pound and Dog Control By-law" (with ambiguous wording, like “periodic exercise" and "sufficient quality"), | found nothing that addressed the SPCA’s jurisdiction in a sit- uation where owners repeatedly let their dogs loose, nor did | find the term "critical distress." Barb Wilson from the Maple Ridge SPCA said, “There are laws and there are people that have disre- gard for the laws. You get these people that have acreage and they feel they don’t have to confine their dogs." She added, "We’re meeting with the bylaws office on Tuesday and we're going to take a look at the whole thing." Given that the bylaw is in urgent need of a com- plete overhaul, | hope the meeting goes well. Wilson said the Danes were licenced and the owners were fined each time to get the dogs out. She said the first fine for licenced dogs is $30 and it goes up $20 for the second incident and again for the third, where it lev- els off at $70. That means that the owners of these dogs have paid $580 in 15 months. Talk about dispos- able income. While | was still in Great Dane mode, | talked with the former secretary of the Great Dane Club of Canada, Lucy, from Winnepeg, Manitoba. She was outraged. "If they are returning these dogs to the people, there is something wrong with the organization," she said. "If | was out in B.C. | would sure do something. Obviously these people can’t look after their dogs. They shouldn't be in that shape and they shouldn't be running loose." Most people wouldn’t argue Lucy’s point. Something has to be done. The present system of ineffective bylaws and poundkeepers whose hands are tied in red tape doesn’t look out for Number One—the animals. You know, it almost makes a person want to take matters into her own hands. It makes a person think that, yes, she can fit two Great Danes, a Black Lab and a pair of kids into my—I mean her—two-door coupe. Sigh...one day.