ANIMALS AT RISK

A dog found on a Buena Vista Avenue property where more than 300
marijuana plants were seized by police last month is now awaiting his
fate.

"The plan is we're trying to find the current owner, but we have a
requirement that if the owner doesn't claim it after 10 days, we have
to put the dog down," White Rock development services director Paul
Stanton said this week.

"That's in our bylaw."

But at least one White Rock resident is trying to help the dog - as
well as a caged rabbit left behind on the property - to find a home.

Peace Arch News reported last month that two White Rock men are facing
charges in connection with an Aug. 6 police incident in the
14900-block of Buena Vista Avenue. Police executing a search warrant
on a home that morning seized about 350 pot plants.

At the time, police believed one or both of the men facing charges -
production of a controlled substance and theft of hydro - were living
at the property in question. The men are due in court in late October.

Stanton said the city has "been making every effort we can" to contact
the dog's owner, without success.

"We've even had the RCMP check to see if the owner is
incarcerated."

Stanton said he didn't know how many days it had been since the dog
was seized, but noted that reports have been made of "vicious attacks"
by the dog on other animals and a bylaw officer.

But White Rock resident Ruth Carrier said the dog, named Mustang, is
friendly.

Carrier, who said she was holding Mustang's leash when he bit the
bylaw officer, suggested the officer was at fault for approaching the
dog quickly and aggressively in his territory. She said she has
interacted with Mustang over the last two years during her walks past
the property, and that he was usually leashed outside, with little or
no water.

"The (inhabitants) never cleaned up the back area. Mustang was just
lying there, in the dirt, all the time. I would take a small Milk-Bone
to him, massage him and rub him down. I used to drop by almost every
day just to see him," she said, noting she received permission from
the male inhabitants of the house, one who claimed to be Mustang's
owner.

Carrier said that when she went to the property last week, Mustang was
wandering around alone with no collar or leash, and no one seemed to
be home. She said animal control arrived and took the dog away.

Since learning Sunday that Mustang was taken to South Surrey's Silver
Birch Kennels, she has visited three times to walk and play with him.

While Carrier admits Mustang needs some work, she believes he is
trainable.

"He really is a very friendly, outgoing dog but he's rambunctious - at
the moment, anyways - because he's never been trained and he hardly
ever got walked; he just got completely left on his own," she said.
"You can work with him, you really can."

Carrier has also been visiting rabbit Bentley - who was left caged
outside under a porch at the now-empty home - giving him water and
dandelion greens.

Carrier said she was told by animal control last week that the SPCA
would be contacted to pick up the rabbit, but Bentley was still there
Thursday.

"I don't know who to turn to," she said of helping both
pets.

Carrier said she plans to look into a program run out of a women's
correctional facility in Abbotsford that takes in difficult dogs and
socializes them with offenders.

The city has also been exploring other options to find a home for
Mustang before he is euthanized, according to Stanton.

"We're looking at all possible avenues before we have to take that
kind of drastic measure but if it comes to the end of the (10-day)
period, there's only so much you can do, especially when you have an
animal that has a number of attacks on animals and actually one of the
bylaw officers earlier this year."

White Rock Animal Control did not return calls by Peace Arch News
deadline.