Ernest Dempsey- All news of plans for euthanizing the life-saver dog Faith have been dismissed by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) of Canada. Faith will continue living as a pet with a caring family outside Ontario since the province does not allow keeping dogs of the pit bull breed as pets.
Faith became the center of attraction and sympathetic reaction for thousands of people who read her story on the Internet, based on an interview with Kalena Mallon of Brantford, Ontario. In the story, Faith was said to be in custody of the SPCA after she saved the life of the 30-year- Kalena Mallon who passed out on roadside near her house. When Mallon was revived, she and her husband called the SPCA to learn whether the savior dog, named Faith by them, belonged to someone. Learning that it was a pit bull, the SPCA took the dog in its custody. Mallon reported that the dog was in danger of dying as the SPCA would put it to death if not adopted by somebody outside Ontario.
Faith’s story was posted in blogs by many animal lovers and caring people, some with angry and caustic remarks. The blogs asked readers to step forward and save Faith from being killed by the SPCA. This caused hundreds of emails and phone calls storming the SPCA office, condemning what they were going to do with Faith and asking for sparing the dog’s life that deserved a reward for the heroic act of saving Mallon’s life.
On Saturday, July 30, however, The Expositor published the response of the SPCA, which dismissed all the claims of Faith’s planned death as rumors. Regretting the reactive blogs, SPCA’s branch manager Robin Kuchma explained that Mallon’s husband seems to have wrongly heard what was told to him on phone, i.e. that SPCA was in the process of finding a foster home for Faith and if that didn’t work, other alternatives would be tried; the latter was interpreted by the fellow as putting Faith to death, which wasn’t the case. Faith already has found a home in the Canadian west and her travel arrangements are nearly complete. She is expected to be home next week.
With this explanation, those who raised a voice of protest and the SPCA staff that cleared the air are both on the same page: that harmless, loving animals like Faith are friends and part of the family, not as objects of aggression or torture. So, Ontario’s ban on pit bulls aside, we can be sure that ‘Faith’ will live in Canada.
