Wednesday, June 3, 2009

He said, she said, they said

Toronto Humane Society press release: The Toronto Humane Society Completely Vindicated

OSPCA Senior Inspector Mindy Hall: The investigation is ongoing ...

The Association for the Reform of the Toronto Humane Society (a group of members, volunteers, and former employees of the Toronto Humane Society): ... called on the Office of the Public Guardian and Trustee of Ontario to freeze the assets of the 122-year-old charity in order to prevent "protracted litigation" over who has run of the organization.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I appreciate your coverage Fred. Very thorough. The whole situation makes me want to be sick though. Seriously, on all levels its very sad. I feel bad for everyone involved, especially the poor animals who are the ones that will suffer in the end. I pray THS can rise above this , change what isn't working and grow from there. I don't think it could get much worse and hopefully it will get beter, now that the spotlight has been placed on them, hopefully things will change.

Susan

Anonymous said...

What a change from the 4 cats needing a dental consult or extra fluids (out of 1,100 animals, all examined over 5 hours or so) to tonight's news about 4 cats in serious condition that were in danger of dying.

Can the OSPCA please be clearer about this?

I'm not much of a conspiracy theorist, but it was a coincidence to receive a snail mail from OSPCA today requesting donations. Perhaps while THS was cleaning up, starting on Saturday, OSPCA was stuffing envelopes? ;)

The truth is out there...

Meaghan Edwards said...

Thank you for your ongoing updates on this sad situation, Fred.

janice said...

I find this all very sad. The Toronto Star quotes Liz Wright ""This relationship [between THS and OSPCA] might look really bad now, but believe me, there have been much worse times," said Liz White, director of Animal Alliance of Canada, who worked for the humane society till 1990." and ""There have been difficult times between the two organizations," White said."Both care for animals but differ on the philosophy behind it. These are two organizations which deeply feel (for animals) and they need to sit down and talk to each other," White added." http://www.thestar.com/article/645351.

I don't think anyone would argue that Tim Trow, Ian McConachie, the staff and volunteers at THS and the staff and volunteers at OSPCA don't care deeply for animals. Now I'm seeing lawsuits and protests being initiated. Somehow I don't think any of these things are going to help. Reading between the lines, it seems a lot a this relates to Tim Trow's politics and personality (not his commitment to animal welfare). I don't think that a war between people and organizations which have the same goals at heart is going to advance the goals.
And really, euthanasia is not the problem. The problem is that we have so many unwanted companion pets. We need to attack that problem at its source.
1. We need to enact City legislation to require all cats and dogs be spayed/neutered (San Francisco just did it) and provide the service free when needed.
2. We need to eliminate the breed bans (its not the breed, its the owner) and devote more resources to training and enforcing good pet ownership.
3. We need to fund all our shelters and humane societies to be able to market the compassionate adoption of shelter pets, including calling out those 'pet stores' that get their animals from puppy mills. Or, even better, can we require all pet stores to source their cats and dogs from animal shelters? That way, people would only have 2 places to get pets, authorized breeders and animal shelters.

Fred said...

janice, a lot of this does have to do with Trow's personality but I think that's precisely because his personality is getting in the way of good management of a humane shelter. For example, the three points you suggested are excellent but from what I understand, Trow would have a very different opinion about point 1.: speutering than you or I. I can't remember where the quotes are but if you look on the THS adoption site, you can frequently find dogs who are unaltered being put up for adoption. There's no reputable rescue I know of that would ever put up an unaltered animal for adoption.

I absolutely share your concerns, though, about losing sight of the animals in all this. However, I just don't see a way to get to a better THS without severely limiting or completely removing all of Trow's iron fisted power politics that saturates the place and that's going to cause pain in the short term for the animals there.

Although, of course I can say that. I'm not the one in a cage.

janice said...

Thanks, Fred. I completely agree that adopting out unaltered animals is just wrong.

Its just too bad that the only known result of any of this is that animals will be hurt, neglected, or not given opportunities to be adopted.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for your thougtful comments Fred. Janice, you keep repeating that everyone should spay and neuter animals. Everyone knows that, Tim doesn't, he got rid of the THS spay and neuter clinic, he adopts out unaltered adult cats and dogs and small domestics, he adopts out thousands of kittens each year and does not ensure that they are spayed and neutered.

Read how much is spent on litigation, on incompetence, notice the lies about the THS that have been exposed, notice the inhumane conditions they are kept in. A chimp could run the THS better. So, the only known result is not that the animals will be worse off - THEY CAN ONLY BE BETTER OFF. Getting rid of Tim is not going to hurt the animals, it is going to help animals