Life's Tough Calls

Buttercup

 Buttercup, the dog the Humane Society put up for adoption while its owner, Paul Lane, was at the ROH. Psychiatrists says this will result in a major depressive relapse.

She's only a dog, after all. So, in a sense, it hardly matters if her life is one of disruptions, uncertainty. Only people who have no familiarity with dogs as intelligent and loyal companions whose company and interest in and trust of their humans can mean so much to the quality of life that both enjoy through that cooperative relationship.

Buttercup's purpose is to give comfort. And in the case of Buttercup, and her owner, Paul Lane, she gives immense comfort to the afflicted. Her human, Paul Lane, is in dire need of as much comfort and understanding as he can possibly eke out of his life and the world surrounding him. He is mentally ill and has few supports other than his three-year-old German shepherd.

"The dog is like a service dog to (Lane), and his constant companion throughout his recent crises. I believe the loss of his dog through the adoption process would be devastating and would trigger a major depressive relapse."
Dr. Michael Chan, psychiatrist, Province Care, Queen's University hospital affiliate

Mr. Lane is 55 years old, formerly married, with two children, though estranged from his adult son, and without much contact with his teen daughter. During his productive working life he was a computer software analyist. Buttercup represents, as it were, his only family. "I miss (Buttercup) very much. I've been crying all week."

Dog owners who invest in their canine companions much of their emotional baggage, know what he means; even dog owners who are socially well-adjusted and in full control of their minds and thought-processes. Separation from a beloved household pet is a difficult matter to contemplate. Permanent separation creates an emotional depression as deep as a freshly-dug grave.

Mr. Lane is being treated at the Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre. He is there for the more immediate purpose of a mental assessment to be delivered to authorities representing the Ontario Review Board for the purpose of allowing them to deliberate his fitness to stand trial on a number of relatively minor charges. Theft, for example, of a can of Pepsi-Cola.

Mr. Lane is homeless, having been evicted last winter from his apartment at a time when he was undergoing an earlier mental assessment in Kingston. This was for another arrest in February representing two different incidents with shoplifting. During that time Buttercup was taken into the custody of the Ottawa Humane Society.

Following the assessment in Kingston, Mr. Lane returned to live in downtown shelters and from there graduated to outdoor life. His lawyer took temporary care of Buttercup at her home for a three-month period. But when Mr. Lane was most recently taken into custody for a criminal infraction, Buttercup was with him and she too was once again taken to the Ottawa Humane Society facilities.

Mr. Lane's lawyer deplores the inadequacy of services available to people in dire situations as a result of their mental instability. That, for example, there should have been a group home facility prepared to take Mr. Lane in, while he was being rehabilitated. And when he was prepared to live again on his own, become reunited with Buttercup, rather than being forced to sleep in shelters where his condition became aggravated.

She's absolutely right there. And the other side of the coin is the increasing burden on society to make funds available through taxation for programs such as this. The increased burden, placed in the light of a life saved ... spending to help someone surmount mental health disabilities, enabling them to live on their own without disrupting society, represents a need to be faced.

In the long run, society gains much, even while it aids someone who may find himself eased of his mental pain, finally capable of living within his own manageable devices, albeit with the ongoing help of charitable assistance. However, in February, the Ottawa Humane Society which operates under rules enabling it to further its agenda to aid animals in distressed conditions requiring they too be rescued, advertised Buttercup for adoption.

Appeals to the OHS by Mr. Lane's lawyer urged reconsideration. Mr. Lane was discharged from Kingston hospital, pleaded guilty to those minor charges, and freed on time served. He was charged a fee of $500, reduced from the original $1000, representing the costs to the OHS for caring for Buttercup throughout those months.

Still, his lawyer was left to care for Buttercup, since her client had nowhere except downtown shelters to stay. Buttercup represents a hope for the future; that at such time when Mr. Lane is able to fend for himself, and find a place of his own to stay in, and begin to live a stable life, Buttercup may join him.

What represents hopeful aspiration to Mr. Lane can be construed by the critical to be a lack of permanency and destabilization for Buttercup, shunted between Mr. Lane, his understanding and kind lawyer and the Ottawa Humane Society. Perhaps for the good of all concerned, Buttercup should be adopted by a family prepared to love her and give her the stable existence that every dog should have.