Dog’s death divides owners, animal shelter

A Merritt-area animal rescue shelter and a local family are butting heads over the events that led to the death of a 12-year-old dog.

Judanna Caros, owner of Angel’s Animal Rescue,said she received a call earlier this month about a dog standing in the middle of Aberdeen Road in Lower Nicola.

Caros told the Herald she found the dog and took him to the Merritt Veterinary Hospital and he was deemed to be malnourished and dehydrated.

Both veterinarians Anne Flemming and Paul Molnar refused to comment.

Caros said she’d been receiving complaints for weeks from people in regards to the poor condition of a dog at a residence on Aberdeen Road and had even been sent pictures of the canine.

She said she wasn’t aware this was the same dog she was going to pick up that day, but put two and two together once she was in contact with its owners.

The dog’s owner, Coleen Colvin, told the Herald she began to notice her 12-year-old canine named Charlie seemed to be getting sick in mid- November as he was losing weight.

Colvin said she thought it was worms at first, and she went to a vet and got medication to treat worms.

When the medication didn’t work, she searched on the Internet for some home remedies to use, such as feeding the dog garlic and herbs.

Colvin said she decided against taking Charlie to a veterinarian for treatment because she couldn’t afford to do so.

“We love our pets, but we do not budget in our everyday lives for extensive pet bills,” Colvin said.

Colvin said she fed Charlie more, hoping he’d regain his lost weight, but the dog’s condition did not improve.

By December, the time came when she told her husband and youngest daughter Randi that the dog would probably need to be put down.

She said her intention was to have the dog euthanized on the Monday or Tuesday of the second week of December as she had her paycheque coming in.

Colvin said that on Dec. 5, she returned to her home on Aberdeen Road in Lower Nicola from work and noticed Charlie was missing.

“He’s chained, he can’t get loose,” Colvin said.

She said her dog usually stays tied up in their front yard and in the winter months, the family moves him into the backyard where his doghouse is located.

She called her other daughter Melissa, who lives nearby, but she hadn’t seen the dog either.

Later that night, Colvin returned from a school function and went looking for Charlie, but couldn’t find him.

Colvin said Charlie was known for getting loose and wandering off to return home later on, although on this occasion, given his sickly condition, she wasn’t sure he would.

Her daughter Randi then called Angel’s Animal Rescue to see if they had come across her dog.

Caros confirmed they had found a dog they believed to be Charlie and the family arranged to go see him at the shelter on Dec. 8.

Colvin met with Caros at the shelter and confirmed the dog was indeed Charlie.

Colvin said Charlie was walking around, had food, water and had toys to play with.

“He was looked after up there,” Colvin said.

Colvin said she suspected Charlie had cancer.

Caros told the Herald she’s dealt with dogs that have cancer and the reason they lose their weight is due to a loss of appetite, which wasn’t the case with Charlie, she said.

Caros said she told Colvin she was willing to help Charlie if there was time to save him. She said she asked for the dog to be left in her care and get blood tests done to see if he was sick.

Colvin told the Herald she thought that was fine and she left Charlie with Caros. Colvin said she emailed Angel’s Animal Rescue on Monday to see if she had contacted the vet and to find out about costs for blood tests as they wanted to try fundraising for the tests.

The blood tests would have taken time, Caros told the Herald, stating a malnourished dog needs to regain some of its health.

“You can’t do blood tests on a dehydrated and malnourished dog; you have to feed them and get them water,” Caros said.

“You can’t just start poking a dog for blood tests until they have a little bit of health to them.”

Colvin said she emailed Caros again on Tuesday and didn’t hear back from her on Wednesday either.

When Caros subsequently contacted Colvin, she asked that she surrender the dog to her so that she could get him treatment. Colvin told the Herald she refused to do that.

“It’s my dog,” Colvin said.

Caros said she asked Colvin to sign a surrender form in order to give Angel’s Animal Rescue the permission to have veterinary treatment performed on Charlie.

“It’s basically a permission sheet,” Caros said, noting she could be held liable if the dog died during treatment without that permission.

On Friday, Dec. 13, Caros called Colvin to tell her Charlie was not well and needed to be put down. They arranged to meet at the Merritt Veterinary Hospital that day.

When they arrived, the vet was on another call and they had to wait. Colvin waited inside the veterinary hospital while Caros stayed with Charlie at her truck.

Caros said the dog was too weak to move and she didn’t want to bring him into the vet’s office as it would have been a stressful experience for him.

“If he was going to have to be euthanized, then I was going to let the vet do it right there,” Caros said.

Colvin said she came over to the truck to say her goodbyes to Charlie and was expecting the dog to be brought into the clinic.

The vet arrived and went to go see the dog at the truck, but Charlie had already taken his last breaths.

Caros told the Herald when she found the dog and first brought him to the vet, he “ate like there’s no tomorrow” and after a few days began eating normally. She said he also drank copious amounts of water at first, but soon began drinking normally.

“People can say they’re feeding their dog, but actions speak a lot louder than words,” she said.

Caros also told the Herald that if Charlie’s owners couldn’t afford to send him to a vet, they shouldn’t have had the dog.

“Why not reach out for help from somebody?” she said.

Colvin said she never considered handing the dog over to Angel’s Animal Rescue before the society found him.

She said if he was going to die, she wanted it to be at the family home with them.

Caros said it isn’t certain if Charlie was sick or not.

“If he died from malnourishment, what happens is they become so malnourished that their systems shut down, their organs stop functioning properly. If they’ve been starved,” Caros said, noting the vet records point to malnourishment.

Colvin’s daughter Melissa told the Herald she thinks that if this was a case of neglect, the dog should have got better as opposed to dying after being taken in by the shelter.

“When we talked about putting Charlie down, it wasn’t that I’m going to take Charlie into the vet, give him a full check-up and everything, he’s sick. I’m going to have him put down and get his ashes back,” Colvin said.

Caros said she thinks Charlie should have received veterinary care.

“That poor dog suffered to the day he died. There should have been something done for him, that’s why we have veterinarians. Our animals don’t have to suffer like this,” Caros said.

Caros also said fundraising efforts by Charlie’s owners should have been done when they first noticed him deteriorating.

Colvin said Caros knew Charlie was her dog and probably should have come to her door when she picked him up and asked if they had taken him to a vet. Caros said when she found the dog, she wasn’t 100 per cent sure it was the one that belonged to Colvin.

Colvin said if she was mistreating her dog, she wouldn’t have had him tied up in the front yard where everyone could see him.

She also said she has two other dogs, both of whom are healthy.

Caros said pet owners need to budget for their pets in case they do need to see a veterinarian. Saving up money, making payment arrangements with a vet or phoning an animal rescue group for help are options to consider for those who may not be able to afford medical care for their pets.