Dog owner who was living in car wants animal returned

A great Pyrenees dog that survived an incredible ordeal last month is now in limbo after she was found living in a car.

Jacquie, a woman from the Olds area who asked not to have her last name used out of concern for her safety, said she was having a discussion with two other people on Jan. 3 about a woman who was living in her car in the area in recent weeks along with a dog and two cats.

The car was parked near the Tim Hortons in the Cornerstone shopping centre that day and Jacquie said she was concerned for the animals due to the cold and the condition of the car's interior.

"So I went and broke into the car because I saw her and I saw inside the car and the car was covered in just disgusting stuff and she had four square feet of space and she's a big dog," she said, adding the dog, named Solei, was thin and in poor health.

The owner of the car and the animals, Iris Nunns, was in Tim Hortons and came out to confront Jacquie when she saw what was happening.

Jacquie said Nunns told her that Solei was so thin because she had recently run away for 10 days. Although Jacquie said she and others offered to help with finding accommodations for Nunns and her animals, she added that Nunns turned down these requests.

Eventually, Jacquie was able to convince Nunns to give her custody of the dog for the weekend and, after informing police about the situation, brought Solei to Dr. Curtis Luzi at the Olds Pioneer Veterinary Centre for an assessment and treatment.

Luzi said Solei came in dehydrated, likely with parasites inside her and with no appetite.

"The coat condition was OK, but she's tremendously underweight," he said, adding he rated her body condition as "two out of nine."

"You look at this dog and you think, well, she doesn't look so bad. But when you put your hands on her and feel, you can see there's a lot of rib there and not a lot of muscle mass."

Although Nunns called Luzi several times over the weekend, he said it was not his place to intervene in the situation.

After the assessment, Jacquie decided she would not return Solei to Nunns.

"I won't give this dog back. I'll go to jail before I do," she said, adding she plans to keep Solei in her care until Luzi declares her fit for adoption.

Nunns said she is now staying with friends in the Eagle Hill area but added she was living in her car for two weeks with Solei, who she has owned for roughly 10 years, and two cats in late December and early January.

She said she kept the car's motor running to keep her and the animals warm and took Solei for frequent walks.

Nunns said she had previously been living with other people in the Eagle Hill area but had decided to drive to British Columbia to escape the Alberta winter.

"And things just kept going wrong."

She never made it out of the area, however, and the night before Jacquie took Solei, Nunns said her car died.

She added she was very upset at the time because the car had belonged to her mother who had passed away and the people who were trying to take Solei were eventually able to wear her down with requests to take the dog to a veterinarian.

"I finally said yes to get them out of my hair," she said. "If it hadn't have been that day, and everything going on around me, I wouldn't have said, OK, take Solei for the night."

Nunns said Solei was thin because she had disappeared for two weeks in early December and was eventually found on an ice floe on the Red Deer River.

After the rescue, she said, Solei was assessed by a veterinarian in Sundre.

"And I have talked to him since and he said there is no reason why that dog needs to be in foster care," she said.

Dr. Uli Schmiemann at Sundre's Pioneer Veterinary Services confirmed Solei had been rescued by the Sundre Fire Department and he had assessed her after the rescue.

While the dog was thin, he said, she "wasn't in horrible shape."

He added he did contact Luzi to say Solei had been rescued after escaping her owner and that he had assessed her.

Schmiemann said although he had told Nunns a car was "not an adequate place to have a big dog like that," he did not believe that she had neglected the dog.

Nunns said she wants Solei back and was preparing to approach police about the matter.

"That dog was stolen," she said.

Const. Kurtis Milbrandt of the Olds RCMP said police had received calls about Nunns living in her car but when they attended no animals were present.

He said police are not actively investigating the matter and would only become involved if the SPCA provided them with evidence of possible criminal abuse against an animal.

The Red Deer SPCA said they had received a call from the dog's owner on Dec. 7 that Solei had gone missing on Dec. 3 and another call on Jan. 10 stating the dog had been stolen.

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