The not-for-profit group says that the towns facilities are not adequate or safe for animals or even workers.
Nearly two weeks ago the SPCA revisited the issue and came to the area to view the towns facilities upon request of Gladys Hickey, the towns Animal Control Officer.
Hickey had made a video sometime in 2004 showing the conditions of the shelter which, after viewing the video, became the subject of the first letter of concern to the town by the SPCA.
In the letter addressed to, then Mayor, Bride McLennon, Deputy Mayor Fred Whelan and Councillors,
The facility consists of one small, non-insulated room with holes open to the outside in both the walls and the roofno siding, no gyprock. The walls appear to be constructed of one layer of plywood and the roof of wooden boards. The list goes on to say that such conditions undoubtedly lead to severe cold, profuse leaking and danger from fumes from a nearby garage seeping into the facility. They even noted that some of the holes in the ceiling were patched with cardboard. Such a situation makes it impossible to maintain a sanitary environment.
Today, the facility in question is located just off the main road in Dunville. Instead of going down to the ball-park make your first left at the Public Works building.
Somewhere behind a barb-wire fence, gravel pile and what looks like a maintenance garage there is the shelter.
Basically there is a two room, cement floored, exposed plywood wall shed that serves as the shelter.
The attached building, the garage, leaks exhaust fumes into the shelter whenever a vehicle enters. The exposed plywood walls have been gnawed and scratched until all the edges are rounded as animals tried to escape.
There are feces all over the floor and urine drains out a trough through the side of the wall out into the open. There is no way to clean the floor because it is coarse concrete and without running water there is little Gladys Hickey can do.
The SPCA also confirmed Hickeys suspicion that disease can stay in the floor and the walls and infect other animals that stay here and it is impossible to disinfect, creating a hazardous working environment.
These are the conditions now, even after the town did a pseudo-clean-up, and the SPCA is still concerned and demanding it be shut down.
Frank Smith, the towns representative on this issue, came to the shelter to meet with SPCA representatives.
He says they are prepared to make arrangements to bring the shelter up to code the only thing is they dont have to.
The town is not required to employ an animal control officer and they are not required to maintain or provide any type of shelter for caught animals. The municipalities act outlines unacceptable behaviour towards animals and defines cruelty and allows for the destruction of injured or overly aggressive animals but leaves much of the handling of cruelty and destruction issues directly in the hands of the not-for-profit SPCA.
In fact in October of 2006 the SPCA sent an invoice to the town for $141.36 for veterinary services incurred by destroying a cat that the town refused to deal with and it has yet to be paid.
In the letter the SPCA scorns the town for their actions. As you know a cat was left suffering on a lawn in your town for several days. A caller to your office concerning this animal was told to leave it there until it died. By the time the SPCA was called and attended to the cat, its skin had been so badly burned by the urine in which it had been sitting for several days that it was in great pain. Apparently, the animal had been hit by a car and left to die. Timely attention by your office could have alleviated that animals suffering and resulted in a much more positive result all around.
After speaking with Frank Smith the town is making arrangements to meet the standards that the SPCA deems suitable and will continue to employ an animal control officer to deal with the problem of stray cats and dogs.
Hickey performs a vital service and as SPCA representatives noted, Her heart is in the right place.
A love of animals is what got her into this line of work, its unfortunate that she sees so many morbid incidents in a week.
She notes that the town wouldnt need a shelter and she wouldnt even have a job if people simply took care of their animals and treated them with some respect.
The SPCA notes in a brochure that many animals are bought for the wrong reasons and plenty end up chained in a backyard year-round or kenneled for the majority of the day with little human contact.
This sort of alienation will destroy an instinctively social animal such as a canine and make it violent and unpredictable and want to run away from its horrible confines.
The concern for the SPCA is to change the attitudes of humans in the way they interact with animals.
Hickey has been this areas sole guardian of suffering animals, of which the SPCA says there is many. She shelters them and cares for them and even takes them to Whitbourne or to the
As of this printing no more animals are being admitted to the shelter and the town is in the process of arranging the funds to build a new facility.
According to Frank Smith the re-fit could prove to be less than $1000 and easier on the pocketbook than they had expected.
The letter dated in May that was given to the town by the SPCA has been officially responded to by the mayor. It again outlined the deficiencies of the shelter and demanded its closure.
Perhaps before winter the animals caught by Gladys Hickey can spend their last days in a warm, safe and disease free environment.
editor@thecharter.ca
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