One dog’s interests

Kate Hammer on Bandit as symbol for Tim Trow’s THS.

Bandit will have been dead six weeks on May 30, the day on which a new board of directors will be elected to take control of the 123-year-old animal-welfare charity. While absent in body, he will be there in spirit, reincarnated as the 800-lb. gorilla in the room. While his plight symbolized the facility’s best intentions of keeping pets alive, it also represented the folly and hubris which led to mistakes made by then-president Tim Trow and his board of directors. All of them stand charged with animal cruelty.

“Bandit certainly represented Tim Trow’s emphasis on animal rights over animal welfare,” said Christopher Avery, a lawyer for the Ontario Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. “That one dog’s interests were pursued despite the negative fallout for the breed, for the shelter and for all his victims.”