Support Cheri DINova's Private Members Bill 222 - STOP BSL

this GREAT video was produced by drummindiver on youtube - it is SPOT on

WARNING: WARN people about this pseudo puppy mill broker!

TAKEN FROM YOUTUBE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFf0_fFkU5s

Cold Noses Warm Beds is a "rescue" located in Langley, BC. They work with various L.A. based rescue groups to bring dogs from California to B.C. to rehome them. The dogs are pulled from shelters and most of the people in the U.S. believe that they are doing good things. But CNWB is selling dogs with no home checks, no name checks, nothing.


The woman in this video gave a false name, false email, false address. Nothing about her story was true. She purchased 2 dogs from CNWB and immediately took them to the vet, where one needed surgery to help an infected neuter site. She told CNWB that the dogs were for an elderly, immobile father for his 70th birthday as a surprise for him (rescuers worst nightmare) and she was given 2 dogs with NO hassles.

The operator of CNWB then posted that the dogs were going to "a family home where they will work in agility". This is NOT true. The 2 dogs in this video, Pepe and Tiny, are long gone now and are safe and sound.

This is NOT rescue and this needs to be stopped. I'd also like to point out that this woman is NOT affiliated with the BCSPCA as she states in the video.

Please, send this out to as many people as you can, this MUST be stopped.

SAFER (or NOT) for dogs

When I was a kid growing up in the 60s, there were some hard and fast rules that most kids (pretty well all that I knew) lived by. They included "be home when the streetlights come on", "clean underwear in case you get hit by a bus", oh, and yeah, NEVER APPROACH A STRANGE DOG.

Yeah, animal/human interaction was covered pretty well, truth be told.

1. Never approach a strange dog. If the owner is there (which in those days was not at all the norm, as dogs ran free way back when), then you ASK them can you pet the dog.
2. Let the dog sniff you, watch their reaction, and NEVER put your face near theirs.

There were lots of others too, but what it came down to was PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY.
Kids were taught to be cautious and to respect boundaries. Parents taught kids personal responsibility and as parents, took on the task of TEACHING their kids how to interact with animals. Unlike today apparently... where, along with getting rid of all playground equipment, throwing all responsibility for socialization, health care, physical activity AND academics on the shoulders of schools and ensuring that YOUR child is NEVER in the wrong, it has also become a necessity that every dog out there MUST be able to tolerate whatever unwelcome, ill-intentioned and boorish behaviour you or your child chooses to inflict.

and yeah, the RESPONSIBLITY lies with the ADULT.

Dogs are well, dogs. They do dog things. They react like DOGS.

I am NOT saying that kids "deserve" to get bitten nor that parents mean to set their kids up for the same or for that matter, themselves.

BUT, assuming that you can walk into any given shelter and pick a dog that no matter WHAT will NOT bite, show aggression or learn to adapt to your home is at best naive, at worst, criminal ...and dogs around the country are dying because of that attitude.

The SAFER temperament test does NOTHING to establish whether any given dog is somehow NOT going to do dog things, react dog-ways.... all it does is give one the ILLUSION of being able to predict a behaviour that in many instances is so beyond what is "normal" for an animal, that it is ludicrous to think that any self-respecting organization or individual gives it creedance.

Take a dog, throw in a pinch of abuse, a cup of neglect, a quart of fear and then mix with a new environment, strangers and isolation. Then take that dog, give it food (keeping in mind, the dog was probably never socialized correctly in the first place and in the case of many shelter dogs, probably was used to being food-deprived), then start poking that dog with a plastic hand... one held by a stranger. SNATCH that dish away from this sad, scared, lonely, confused and frightened dog.... then act surprised that it growls or otherwise reacts and mark it for death...
Oh, and let's ignore the realities of the dog breed (or if a mutt, breeds) and their natural, inbred tendencies towards certain behaviours - let's not count that. I mean, after all, so many potential adopters do - basing their "choices" on the look of a dog with little to no insight into the realities of the breed they find so adorable.

For instance, another part of the SAFER experience... the "hug" test... yeah... HUG that dog tight - you know the same one that you don't know, that you have yet to establish a relationship with - get right in there in their personal space and threaten them by enveloping them in a big old HUG .... you just want to see if they're open to it right?

All three of my dogs are rescues .. two german shepherds and one terrier.

I am, hands down a "shepherd" person - LOVE the breed... and that mean understanding that shepherds are PACK... that shepherds are PROTECTIVE... that shepherds are not, for the most part, interested in casual interactions with people outside the pack .. which means I understood when I took on my dogs (a year apart) that I KNEW I needed to establish a relationship with them. They were NOT going to allow me - nor would I even think - about getting all up close and personal with these dogs until we had worked out that we were in this together ... until I establish trust and they had learned to look to me as the leader... I knew that I needed to prove myself and provide them with loving, firm leadership in order to reassure them that we were PACK, that they were secure, that they had a place and a role.

That mean lots of time and patience.. it meant sitting down with my kids and going over how the dogs were to be handled, how the kids were to handle themselvse vis-a-vis the dogs; establishing routines and rules and predactibility and cause and effect. Consistency, firmness and routine all paid off and today we have these great dogs ... who are wonderful with US... but outside our pack, I continue to monitor them closely as it is MY responsiblity as a dog-owner to ensure the public - even the idiotic public like the people who come barelling up and try to throw their arms around their necks (especially my 92 lb black male who for some reason, people find irrisstable) - are protected against their OWN irresponsible and criminal behaviour so MY dogs don't suffer the consequences.

But what drives me into a frenzy is the number of organizations that are adopting the SAFER test as an effective way of 'assessing' dogs ... 80% of which end up getting killed. Dogs which with the RIGHT owner could have long, fulfilling and happy lives. Dogs that just need a chance to show people how wonderful they can be.

There ARE no guarantees when it comes to ANY dog - yeah, not even those very few that 'pass' that stupid test ....because dogs, like people, and react to circumstance and their behaviour can change depending on their treatment and the manner in which they integrate into a home. Dogs have personalities, not just intrinsic to their breed but to their own individual sense of self.
And I don't object, on principle, to a temperament test - but to one based on the assessment of a qualified canine expert, one based on realistic goals tempered with an understanding that the shelter environment is artificial, frightening and unnatural. Assessments based on familiarity, interaction and understanding as well as the necessity of installing basic skills in the handler and the dog.

All I'm saying is give a dog a chance... I mean, the REAL dog .. not the imaginary, Hollywood-fuelled "perfect" dog.

Zen and the Art of Dog Walking

Sand and grit trickle between toes exposed by summer sandals. The dogs gambol and cavort, whimpering in an excess of joy that threatens to overwhelm, sides quivering, ears pricked, struggling to contain exuberance and walk sedately as demanded. Light glitters and refracts from the still surface of the lake, reflecting back into eyes hooded by dark glasses, sparking a yearning which I throw out to the water which stretches into an infinity of possibility before me, horizon and lake melding and melting into a homogeneous string of maybes that beckons with a mesmeric compulsion.

As we enter the off-leash, I release the quivering beasts and breathe deep their simple joy in freedom. I watch the dogs gambol, in their world of here and there is just warm breath and fur and the wonderful burning feel of muscles as they stretch their legs and run and bark to a sky they never question and the sweetness of another furry body matching their own and the sweet intensity of smell and feel and just being and I see in them a profound wisdom.

I find a measure of peace, sharing in their spiritual journey of living in the now and envying them too their simple acceptance of what each second brings and yearn for the same simplicity of purpose and existence.

I think man’s greatest gift is also his greatest curse… this ability we harbour to question.

Our restless, probing minds refuse to simply exist but must instead constantly ask and demand answers from a universe which simply exists and can provide no profound rebuttal to the whys. And yet, and yet … quixotic and contrary, I have such treasured memories of the smoky, warm closeness of the Social Club and passionate anger and spirited arguments and the grasping of universal truths and the rejection of measured logic for the simple joy of contrariness and a desire to provoke. Beer, warming in palms sweaty from passion and time which sweeps through the night like a comet trailing possibilities and devours the hours of our lives with an appetite made voracious from denial.

And in those halcyon moments, I sit suspended, youth and passion and the hard hot reality of need forever etched in the twists and turns of mutable time, forever caught as if in amber, the remembrance of what was.

The dogs yelp and tongues lolling leap into the lake which laps placidly at the stony beach, their bounding feet churning sediment and sand and clouding the clear water. There is sun and cool water and the simplicity of strong muscles and endless energy and play and they are and they exist and they do not question.

I know that when I walk the dogs from the helter, as I pause in front of the pen of the dog I am going to walk, there is a sudden realization in their sad, dark eyes that for that moment, their lives have blossomed and opened into a multitude of possibilities. That when I take them, bodies quivering and pulling, my arm flexed, muscle straining as I seek to hold back their captive spirits which batter against the shackles of reality, that for THIS moment, there is a terrible freedom that for that second of their life, is absolute.

Not for them the dragging of memory to smother and distort the simplicity of the moment; rather, they embrace with an enthusiasm to be envied the pure delight of this second in time. In their simple and complete acceptance of the moment, dogs have a profound understanding of the universe that rivals the most erudite of speakers or philosophers.

Ultimately, Buddhists (particularly Zen Buddhists) see the ultimate goal of our reality is to eradicate the line we falsely and stubbornly draw between “being” and “doing”. Dogs have achieved a state of wholeness that human beings can only hope to emulate. For them, there is no line between the mind and the body and the reality of the moment, no alienation from the totality that makes them dog.

So encompassing is their embrace of the now that there is not even a concept of “dog” simply being and as I watch them tumble and run and stretch muscles designed to move, I find myself losing my own sense of alienation. Somehow by sharing in the absoluteness of their existing in that second, I find my own mind relaxing and opening, expanding to embrace and welcome the totality of my body.

The Zen philosophy teaches that “spirit of love and compassion for all beings is developed through continual spiritual purification, the cultivation of a deep sense of responsibility, and most importantly, through self-discipline” and I sense as my spirit calms and my mind slows, as my heart expands and reaches out to the beauty of motion before me, a sense of comradeship with these elemental creatures of muscle and sinew, a connection to the simplicity of living that ignites in the greyness of heart a small, flickering flame.

She died today

Choking on her own blood.

She died today but at least she died in the arms of someone who loved her.

We think our beautiful, mischieveous shepherd cross spent the first 10 years of her life in a home - she did not after all, spring fully grown and whole from the forehead of a god. But we don't know her story, just that around a year ago she turned up at the shelter.  She was frightened, fearful and skittish. Her energy levels were spectacular and we kept checking to see if she was indeed the 10 years her card labelled her.

The first thing she did was jump a 6 foot fence and escape, trailing the long lead intended to allow her to be captured INSIDE the park.  Then she got hit by a car. Then she disappeared for several days.

and was found, bruised, hungry and scared 2 days later but fine. 

She then spent the next year capturing hearts with her mischievous antics and boundless energy.  She lived for kongs and would leap joyfully into the air to capture them and gallop back to eye the walker expectatnly .  She was a two-kong girl as her manners were not the best but the routine worked.

We also watched with heavy hearts as week after week passed... as person after person walked by her expectant hopeful gaze and onto to another dog ... always, always ANOTHER dog... not once in all her time there did I even know of anyone who wanted to meet her - not once did I hear of one person looking into those sweet, mischievous brown eyes and thinking, yeah, there's my girl! 

Then those of us who loved her noticed that crazy energy was diminishing ... that her glossy blonde, black-tipped coat was dulling....

and it turned out she was dying.... her kidneys failing, her liver ravaged.

Told to expect only 4-6 weeks by shelter staff, hearts breaking, we scrambled to find her a foster, somewhere, anywhere that she could find, for those few precious last weeks a feeling of home.

and one of the walkers (bless you, Souha) stepped up and 10 days ago, our beloved girl finally went home.

For a week she cried and paced and whined and barked and the angel that had embraced her slept on the floor and went without rest... until suddenly from one day to the next she figured it out - this was HOME. This was a GOOD place.  There was healthy food and pats and love... there was your own little den and lots and lots and lots of caring and attention and focus. There were kongs to be tossed and walks to be taken. There were two other dogs to muscle and challenge (and even interact with, eventually)) and there was consistency...

And then the story changed.

In bringing her the vet used by fosters, our angel foster mum discovered that her kidneys were clear and yes, while her liver WAS dying, she had (with luck) a year to 18 months .... a FAR cry from the 4-6 weeks we had been told.  But our girl was still not good .. her tummy swollen and distended with fluid.

Bringing her down to the recommended vet, she arranged to have the fluid drained. Picking her up Tuesday, the two of us were appalled at the angry, swollen mess of a wound.  Despite our worries, we were told it was "normal".. that the bleeding would stop, that the 'bruising' was simply from the cathetars which had been inserted to drain her tummy ....

And we brought her home and she was quietly (our crazy girl!), peacefully happy ... and curled up in her own little crate but wasn't hungry or thirsty ...

and so our angel foster mum made an appointment for this morning, She was fretting. This wasn't like our girl.. this lethargic, quiet, sad little dog.... and last night in the cold early hours before dawn, she choked and our foster mum, sleeping on a mattress on the floor beside her, jumped up and our girl choked and gasped and the blood spewed from her mouth and from her rectum and after a horrific, choking, terrible length of time, our girl's spirit decided it was enough... and clasped in the lap of love and caring, her soul slipped out and kong in mouth left for the rainbow bridge ...

Goodbye sweet spirit .. I don't know why you were denied the comfort of home and hearth for your last years. I don't know how someone could abandon such a blythe, mischievious spirit, such exuberance and such boundless capacity for love ... and I don't know why you were denied those last months of life promised you... months that would have been filled with the caring and love and attention you deserved ...