Trucs & Astuces pour les Saisons et les Fêtes
Moving Day
- If You're Planning a Move, Don't Forget Your Pets
If You're Planning a Move, Don't Forget Your Pets
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Planning a Move? Don't Forget Your Pets
The Montreal Gazette
Thousands of pets are abandoned and left to die every summer as the 1st of July draws closer - the time when many Montrealers are packing up to move.
Quebec's lenient animal-protection laws are largely to blame.
Pet owners can get away with negligent behaviour because leaving an abandoned cat or dog outdoors, where it can potentially find food, isn't illegal in Quebec.
What is illegal is to abandon an animal in an apartment, leaving it alone and suffering from starvation or thirst, said Pierre Barnoti, executive director of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
Leaving an animal in a box outside the SPCA is perfectly okay, he added.
During the moving period in Montreal last year, the SPCA took in about 34,000 abandoned pets.
Tens of thousands of animals are abandoned annually, according to Toni Andrea Belschner, president of the Societe quebecoise pour la defense des animaux.
"Forty-five per cent of Quebec households with pets don't keep their animals for more than two years."
SPCA spokesperson Genevieve Pinchbeck contends that the number of animals abandoned annually - especially near moving day - is so great that it's impossible to nab owners who are breaking the law.
"We don't look into prosecuting owners because we only have two or three inspectors in all of Quebec," she said.
"And the police are lazy when it comes to arresting animal abusers," added Pinchbeck, who also blames the SPCA's lack of resources for the high number of abandoned pets in Montreal.
The maximum penalty for a negligent pet owner is a $3,000 fine or three years in jail.
"The punishment is not even that severe," Pinchbeck said.
Animal rights seem to be less important in Quebec than elsewhere in Canada, said Johanne Tasse, a spokesperson for dog-adoption agency Animatch.
Quebecers tend to view pets as commodities, Tasse said.
"If every individual in Quebec would be a little more sensitized to the situation, we wouldn't have such a big problem on moving day."
Although animal-rights activists and city officials are working to curtail pet abandonment during this summer's moving period, the message isn't getting through with everyone.
"We've already found some dogs tied up to radiators in empty apartments, and cats abandoned in boxes," said Patricia Tulasne, a spokesperson for the Societe quebecoise pour la defense des animaux.
"People just think that someone else will find their pets and take care of them," Tulasne said. "Most of the time, that doesn't happen."
In co-operation with city executive committee member Alan DeSousa, Tulasne's organization is running a campaign to educate Montrealers about the consequences of deserting a pet.
DeSousa, the borough mayor of St. Laurent, has sent a series of posters - made by the Societe quebecoise pour la defense des animaux - to other boroughs urging pet owners to act responsibly. The posters can be found in neighbourhood libraries and community centres.
"We're asking people to consider their pets as family members," said DeSousa, adding that many pet owners only make decisions about their pet's fate at the last minute, when the moving truck is pulling away.
"Try to find a home for your pet because there are definitely people willing to provide one, people should also think carefully before adopting an animal in the first place," she added.
"An animal isn't something you can just throw away if you don't want it anymore."
Pets Abandoned Amid Moving Day Chaos
The Canadian Press, 2003
Not everybody will get a new home on Quebec's July 1 annual moving day.
City-run shelters have been set up to handle the human crunch of people who couldn't find or couldn't afford new accommodations as Montreal copes with continued tight vacancy rates.
But more than 500,000 of Quebec's four-legged residents will be left to aimlessly wander the streets, peer anxiously from behind cage bars or simply be killed if no one adopts them.
"Right now we have exceeded the capacity of the shelter," said Pierre Barnoti, director of the Montreal branch of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. The organization's two Montreal shelters now house around 600 animals.
"Every tenant who's trying to move into a dwelling and has a pet has a problem in Quebec. Less and less landlords are tolerant of pets."
Most of the abandoned animals are cats -- about 65 per cent -- and the remainder are dogs.
Quebec displays one more example of its distinctiveness from the rest of Canada on July 1. When the rest of the country is focused on celebrating the country's birth, Quebecers are lugging furniture.
July 1 has been the province's official moving day since 1973, when it was legislated to ease disruptions to the school year caused by the old moving date, May 1.
That means most of the leases in the province end on the same day, clogging the streets with moving vans and filling the air with grunts.
Often, Fido and Kitty are not toted along with the dishes and chairs.
They get dropped off somewhere away from home, often lured away from their owner by what appears to be a friendly game of fetch _ except the owner disappears before the dog brings back the ball. Other times they're simply abandoned until someone hands them over to the SPCA.
Barnoti said the stress brought on by the abandonment often compromises the animal's immune system and sometimes it has to be put down when it becomes ill.
"These are fantastic animals," Barnoti said. "There is nothing wrong with them except that the people who own them cannot have them any more in order to find an apartment.
"Luckily, we've been increasing our adoptions every year for the past 10 years. I believe we have the record in Canada for the largest number of animals adopted so I still hang on to the hope that I won't have to euthanize too many animals."
Barnoti didn't have cross-Canada figures for abandoned animals but it's more likely a seasonal concern. No other province mandates a single moving day and leases are staggered.
But John Levi, president of the Canadian Association of Movers, said movers are still kept hopping.
"This is the busiest season of the year for movers as kids come out of school, as job transfers occur mostly over the summer and people's leases on their rental accommodation come up at the end of the month," he said from Mississauga, Ont.
Alan DeSousa, a member of the city of Montreal's executive committee, urged people to think twice before abandoning their pet.
"It's an act of cruelty to the animal because it risks dying of cold, hunger, illness or injuries," he said. "As well, they create a public nuisance because in reproducing, they give birth to other strays."
DeSousa, along with Patricia Tulasne of the Quebec Society for the Protection of Animals, urged people to find new homes for their pets instead of leaving them to fend for themselves.
