THS – Ruining No Kill for the Rest of Us
Gravely ill cat suffers in cage at the Toronto Humane Society
I’ve spent a lot of years defending the Toronto Humane Society against the nasty rumors that have been flying around. I was a volunteer dog walker there for a long time, and made some great friends, both four footed and two footed. It seems, however, that things aren’t just as bad I’ve been hearing – they’re actually much, much worse.
THS has long been a pioneer of No Kill, but the news report in the Globe and Mail spells out just what THS has been willing to sacrifice to be able to make that claim. Animals left to suffer and die, alone and in pain. Elderly dogs forced to endure pointless surgeries and painful recoveries, only to die in agony. Kittens and cats who scream and writhe in death throes, with no one there to alleviate their suffering. All of the myriad tortures that opponents of No Kill have always claimed would occur, and all taking place in Canada’s largest and best funded private shelter.
Toronto Humane Society has lost the right to include the word ‘humane’ in their name, through greed and negligence and sheer stubbornness. THS President Tim Trow has, in the (as always) dead accurate words of One Bark at a Time, “become like an animal hoarder with a multi-million budget”.
What the animals are going through at THS is unconscionable, and unforgivable. From the Globe and Mail article:
On May 11, barely five months after a leg amputation that removed a cancerous limb, Bobik’s foster mother brought him in for care at the THS.
The incision from his leg amputation re-opened, his breathing was laboured, saliva dripped from his mouth and there was blood in his stool.
On the afternoon of May 12, after bleeding from his anus for two days, Bobik died.
Most shelters would have put Bobik down, said two veterinarians, as the cancer in his leg was likely to spread, and learning to walk on three legs can be difficult for an arthritic dog with hip dysplasia. Indeed, internal records show that many animals admitted to the THS die slow deaths rather being euthanized.
The cats are suffering, too.
A note written by a staff member or volunteer on the medical chart of a cat, Animal ID A127495, admitted last fall, reads: “Died Oct 19 3:15 am. Gasped and jerked and cried last breaths, because there was no one in shelter to euthanize or treat. This is not humane”
Everything that every single detractor of No Kill has ever claimed will happen if a shelter attempts No Kill has been happening at Toronto Humane Society. They’re a dirty stain on the reputation of No Kill, the ugly step sister to the good shelters who kill for kindness when it becomes the only humane thing left to offer the animals who come in their doors. No Kill is tainted by their affiliation, and brought low by their greed and lies.
Shame on the THS. Shame on Tim Trow.
Delilah is Unhappy
Poor Delilah is as big as house, and not very happy about it. She looks like she swallowed a watermelon, and considering she’s already a hefty girl, and that she has almost 2 1/2 weeks to go still, this is only going to get more painful to watch. She has a heart breaking routine – heave a sigh, stare at her stomach, stare at me with a look that says “This is all YOUR fault, and I’m not letting you forget it”, and then heave another sigh of resentment.
She is so never going to forgive me for this…
Hunting Dogs with a Flashlight
Tessa has been acting a little bit bonkers lately (I should, perhaps, clarify this to “A little more bonkers than usual”).
She’s always been a frequent pee-er, more so now in her old age, and getting up two or three times during the night to let her outside is now standard operating procedure for us. I can now get up, let her out, let her in, and stumble back into bed without ever really fully waking up.
The last few weeks, however, Tessa has been off her food, which has led to us feeding her more or less anything she wants. This, in turn, has led to her having the runs – specifically to her having the runs at 3 or 4 am, sometimes both, sometimes even more than that.
Like most Frenchies, Tessa is a shy pooper. She needs to know she’s someplace where no one else, dog or human, can see her going. This can usually be in the form of a bush or shrub, but last night, Tessa seemed inable to find just the right spot, with just the right amount of privacy, and so she hit the trail for what we refer to as some “Frenchie off roading”. That’s where she starts trucking across the yard, full speed ahead, even though she doesn’t really seem to have a destination in mind.
The problem, of course, was that she went off roading in the middle of the night – and our nights, up here away from the glow of cities and industry, are dark nights, especially when there’s no moon out. Last night was overcast, cloudy, and indigo dark. Anything outside the immediate pool of light from our porch was invisible and unseeable, and this including my little white French Bulldog, who was, if not heading for the hills, then at the very least heading for the spruce bush at the side of our property. Our bush is thick and tangled, leading down into a swampy area and from there into a shallow but fast moving stream, and Tessa was heading right for it.
I woke Sean out of a dead sleep by shreiking for him to find the flashlight, while I headed out in barefeet and housecoat to try and catch Tessa. Catching something you can no longer see is difficult at the best of times, and made worse when the dog you’re chasing can’t hear you.
Ten minutes of panic stricken searching, and there she was, looking cold and damp and decidely confused. I scooped her up, carried her into the house, and tucked her into bed. When she needed out again, two hours later, I let her out into the safely fenced downstairs yard. Tessa has lost off road privileges for good, it seems.