I love animals and miss my Ms. Pye every day. How a person could treat a dog like this is beyond anything I can understand. While not everyone might agree with Gandhi’s political and religious views, I think we can all agree that his words below hold value:
“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.”
― Mahatma Gandhi
The Animal Advocates Society of BC first saw this sad, abused, and neglected dog at night, “lying in the frozen mud in her own feces, being snowed and sleeted on”1 with no blanket, toy, or bone. And according to several upset neighbors who saw her owners urinate on her from the porch, when the British Columbia SPCA was contacted multiple times, they did nothing. For many years.
That’s correct. Not only could the BC SPCA have seized her and charged the owner with cruelty via the BC Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act but they could have used the Humane Treatment of Dogs Bylaws to urge the owners to take better care of her. And yet, they did nothing.
What they did do was offer to give the owners $50 to kill her:
“We were given Judith a day before her owners told us they were going to take Judith to the SPCA and take advantage of its “kill for cash” service, one of its sideline businesses.
At that time, the SPCA ignored hundreds of animals so abused that they were near death. But the SPCA did kill thousands of unwanted pets a year for another one of its lucrative sidelines businesses — pet-disposal contracts with municipalities all over BC. It’s a good thing the BC SPCA didn’t seize this dog, because they only would have killed her.”1
If you are disgusted and shocked, you are not alone. The SPCA will never again get any of my money.
But this story thankfully does not end there. A neighbor finally contacted Animal Advocates of BC and they went to her straight away, documented her misery, and then rescued her. When they arrived she was emaciated, dehydrated, barely able to walk because of her hips, and her coat was weighed down by clumps of caked mud.
Although her owners called her Judas AABC changed her name to Judith.
And then they found her a “home with two very special people, who loved her dearly, and made her a member of their family, which is what every dog wants more than anything — more than food, water, and shelter. And when her old hips gave out, her family got her a cart and took her everywhere. She went camping, and to the lake, and chased squirrels in her cart. And when she died of old age, after eighteen months, she took with her all her memories of pure love, and warmth, and good food, and fun.”1
We hope and trust that all those good memories far outweighed, and even overrode, the time before.
Rest in Peace, sweet Judith.
SOURCE:
