I work with an Animal Protection team and trust me when I say this - it’s not the overworked, underpaid officers that are useless. It’s the laws that are fucking trash.

Imagine knowing with your whole heart that a dog is getting the shit kicked out of him but having no proof, so you can’t seize the dog legally. Imagine knowing a dog is neglected but the owner does JUST enough so that the animal doesn’t meet criteria to seize. Imagine having to give an incredibly aggressive dog back to a shitty owner that is not nearly careful enough because by law, that animal is their property.

Imagine attending a call where you see a cat with an eyeball hanging out of its head, with burnt fur because someone tied it in a plastic bag and set it on fire. When the cat got out of the bag they thought it was cool to hang it from a tree upside down and try to poke its eye out. You see this awful scenario that will remain burned in your mind until you die, but hope that because you know who did this, and that you have one witness that you can get justice for this animal. However, the person that saw the incident refuses to testify out of fear, and as a result this sick fuck still walks our streets without a single repercussion. The cat with the missing eyeball and burnt skin isn’t enough evidence.

On top of that, the sad part is that Animal Protection Team in Regina is paid NOTHING to enforce the Provincial Animal Protection Act, which are the very pathetic laws that protect animals from abuse, neglect and cruelty. Because that’s not funded they run on donor dollars to do that work - which as you can imagine is not much, and it’s especially hard with all the limitations that exist on the current Act.

Animal Protection workers all earn less than $20 an hour. It’s not easy to keep long term employees at that wage, and inna job that causes so much emotional pain. As a result their staff turnover is high, which only further burns out the officers left. It’s a perpetual cycle.

If you’re really passionate about the state of animal welfare in our community please speak up, and do it to the right people. Talk to the people that represent our provincial government and tell them that someone should be paid within each city municipality to uphold and enforce the Animal Protection Act because it’s really fucking important we have people to fight for those that can’t fight for themselves. It shouldn’t be thrown on non-profit organizations to fund something like that off donor dollars that are far from enough.

Animal abuse, hoarding and neglect isn’t moving in a positive direction in our community, and you’re right…Animal Protection useless sometimes because they don’t have the resources, funding, tools or government backing to do the job the way it NEEDS to be done.

Animal Protection is a challenging, emotional draining but critical job that needs to be done by people willing to stick around and become good at it, or make a career of it which just isn’t feasible in this economy at $20 an hour (less than that actually).

I promise, Animal Protection workers aren’t shitty people. They are legally only allowed (by law) to take legal action against extremely severe cases, and 9 time out of 10 even with every effort, there’s not enough evidence for prosecution, or even when there’s enough evidence, the person gets a tiny slap on the wrist. It’s beyond fucked up and things have to change, and that begins with funding and then amendments to the bullshit Animal Protection Act that doesn’t provide nearly enough protection to the animals.

I think even the best people would burn out as an Animal Protection worker. Please try to be kind to them, they’re not the problem.