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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

Animal shelter sees alarming rise in abuse

By: Gordon Sinclair Jr.

Posted: 08/10/2012 1:00 AM | Comments: 0

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Submitted photo Dexter and his brother, Blaze, were rescued by a nurse in northern Manitoba.

Be warned.

Apparently, these are the dog-abuse days of summer.

Last month, when the Winnipeg Police Service's Crime Stoppers program announced it was teaming up with a similarly styled animal abuse hotline called Paw Tipsters, you might have wondered if it was really necessary, given it was a first in Canada.

Perhaps that's because you haven't been talking to Carla Martinelli-Irvine.

She's never seen animal abuse and cruelty like she's witnessed recently.

And what the founder of the Winnipeg Pet Rescue Shelter told me Thursday was enough to make any dog lover weep.

Just as the nurse did, who brought a grossly injured puppy and her devoted brother all the way from a northern Manitoba First Nation to Carla's office in St. James.

"She was in tears," Carla said late Thursday morning. "She said she just couldn't watch them starve to death and suffer."

Carla reported that to me while Dexter, an eight-month-old St. Bernard cross, was just going into surgery with veterinarian Peter Schwartz at the Assiniboine Animal Hospital.

A veterinary orthopedic specialist had examined Dexter's mangled left front leg, the one Peter believes was caught in a bear trap three to four months ago, judging by the atrophy.

The specialist confirmed the leg couldn't be saved. It would have to be amputated all the way to the shoulder.

Now Winnipeg Pet Rescue has to raise at least $1,500 to cover the surgery and after care for Dexter.

The happy news out of all the suffering Dexter endured -- including malnourishment and circle-shaped burns on his body -- is his brother Blaze was always with him, nuzzling and comforting him.

"His brother has just never left his side," Carla said.

There's other good news.

Carla believes the likelihood is that, because the missing limb is a front leg not a back, the outlook for a good life is, well, better than good if they can both find caring and patient owners to make all the adjustments, including walking on a leash.

As Carla said, "You just can't break them up after going through this together."

But clearly, as I was suggesting earlier, Dexter and Blaze aren't alone for another reason. That's because, as Carla was saying, the last two weeks have been the worst she's seen in her more than two decades in pet rescue.

By way of one example, she mentioned the dog who was backed over in its own driveway and left there for two days with a dislocated pelvis, internal injuries, a broken leg and a crushed paw. When he arrived at Winnipeg Pet Rescue Shelter in a covered Rubbermaid container, he was still alive and still yelping in pain.

"It was just awful." Carla recalled. "I've done this 22 years and it's the worst I've ever seen."

What was worse, but necessary, is the dog had to be euthanized.

Then there's Hitch.

She's a puppy thrown from a car who managed to stagger along the gravel shoulder of a highway as nearly two dozen cars passed her by before being rescued. If you dare to look, Hitch's rescue and recovery story is on the shelter's Facebook page.

And then there's the mother cat and her newborn kittens dumped by Carla's office back door. They were trapped inside a taped-shut box on a day when the humidex hit 41.

I asked Carla why she thinks it's been so bad, so often, lately.

"I think it's about intolerance," she said. "Not caring enough. People are too busy to take the time. People just don't understand that these animals suffer."

Maybe that's part of it.

But it's the ones who know animals suffer that make my eyes fill with rage, not tears. The ones who know and don't care, or actually enjoy inflicting pain on the vulnerable.

Pets and people alike.

(POSTSCRIPT -- I just finished typing those words when Carla called me. She said Dexter didn't wake up from surgery. If I hadn't been weeping with the nurse who rescued Dexter before, I am now and for his brother, Blaze.)

gordon.sinclair@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition August 10, 2012 B1

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