Nine puppies rescued from unheated basement in North Okanagan home

The B.C. SPCA has seized nine dogs, including six puppies, that were being kept in an unheated basement in a North Okanagan home.

They took the dogs yesterday, Dec. 21, while outside temperatures were -24 Celsius.

“When our animal protection officers arrived in response to a complaint, they found dogs and puppies in a basement without heat or insulation,” Eileen Drever, senior officer, protection and stakeholder relations for the B.C. SPCA, said in a news release.

“The puppies were shivering and huddled for warmth. They had no bedding except for a bit of dirty hay and there was a build-up of feces and puddles of urine throughout the enclosure. There was a small amount of dog food on the floor, but the only accessible water was dirty and in an unclean bowl.”

Those were two adult Golden Retrievers with four puppies. In another area of the basement they found a pregnant Australian shepherd and two more shivering puppies.

Outdoors there was an uncovered shelter that, again, was littered with feces.

The nine dogs were rushed to a veterinarian and are now being held by the SPCA.

They are not available for adoption, at this time, but the SPCA welcomes donations at spca.bc.ca/donate, here.


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Rob Munro

Rob Munro has a long history in journalism after starting an underground newspaper in Whitehorse called the Yukon Howl in 1980. He spent five years at the 100 Mile Free Press, starting in the darkroom, moving on to sports and news reporting before becoming the advertising manager. He came to Kelowna in 1989 as a reporter for the Kelowna Daily Courier, and spent the 1990s mostly covering city hall. For most of the past 20 years he worked full time for the union representing newspaper workers throughout B.C. He’s returned to his true love of being a reporter with a special focus on civic politics

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