I'm in Canada (Vancouver, BC). I used to live in a basement suite, below my landlord, who was verbally abusive towards her live-in employees. I was told by one of these employees that the landlord makes her dogs sit on the couch and hits them with a wooden spoon if they jump off, which sounds like animal abuse. I want to report it to the BCSPCA now that the employee in question (the only one likely to have known about this) has moved out and is not in danger of any kind of retaliation, but there are a few things I'm worried about:
- Does this qualify as abuse? The signs of abuse listed on https://spca.bc.ca/faqs/how-do-i-report-animal-cruelty don't apply -- the dogs look healthy. As far as I've seen, the landlord otherwise takes care of them. She may just be weird and controlling of them, and have the wrong idea of how to discipline them. Maybe I or the employee misunderstood what's happening?
- If it's abuse, how can the SPCA prove it? Like I said, there are no signs of abuse.
- What if their investigation makes her even more aggressive to her dogs out of anger? Or if they take her dogs away, is she going to become abusive towards her employees?
The best-case scenario is that the SPCA visits, scares the hell out of her, and she never does it again, but I'm really worried that's not going to be what happens. What would you say to my concerns? What should I do?