Heidelberg couple's 'struggle' with Hessequa Municipality:
My husband and I received a letter on 23 May to tell us we are given 48 hours to get rid of our dogs. We could not get any help on the phone and decided to drive to Riversdal to speak to Mr Chris Onrus to see if he could help us with this situation.
He knew who we were, but was not willing to help. He said we could ask for an extension on the 48 hours, which we did.
We then received a letter from Hessequa Municipality on 11 June to say that we have three months to get rid of our dogs.
Since no one wants to listen to our story, I have decided to write to you hoping that somebody will try and understand the situation. My husband and I have been fostering abused and abandoned dogs for several organisations since 2016. In this time we saved several animals from certain death and they went to lovely homes.
But over the years six of these broken souls that ended up with us, could not be adopted. This is due to age, severe separation anxiety, or the economic situation in our country. We gave these dogs a home where they are loved and cared for. We spend a small fortune every month on their specialised food and medicine. They sleep in our room and we treat them like our children. We are not dog-hoarders, or breeders. They are all sterilised and inoculated.
Since we've moved to Heidelberg we are no longer fostering and will not be adopting any more dogs.
Before we bought a house in Heidelberg we explained our situation to the estate agent and asked if it is a problem in Heidelberg to have six dogs. She assured us that it isn't as there are many owners of multiple dogs (three or more) in town and even in our neighborhood.
Since moving here we also went to the municipality to buy licenses for all six dogs. The municipality had no problem issuing these licenses. We just had to present the sterilisation certificates. Our current licenses expire in October, but now the municipality will not even honor their part of that contract. Since the municipality has issued these licenses, we cannot be found guilty of contravening any bylaws.
Point 2 of the bylaw clearly states that we should get permission to keep more than two dogs, which we did and which Hessequa Municipality agreed to by giving us the permits needed.
If you do look into our situation you will find that there have been several complaints about our dogs - all made by one man (his identity is known). He is not our neighbor.
His first complaint was that the dogs were running in the streets. Your law enforcement officers came to investigate and found that our dogs cannot get out of our yard.
The second complaint was that the dogs bark all night. Again your law enforcement officers investigated and found that our dogs sleep in our room and therefore we will be the first to know if they are barking at night.
The third complaint was that the dogs were not cared for and were badly treated. This time your officers showed up with six cages! We showed them our whole yard and house. They could see that none of our dogs were thin or sickly. We showed them the Hills food, the water bowls all over the house and yard, and their beds inside our house. Again they left.
We were told that an investigation will be made into our situation. But then this man started complaining that we have six dogs - for the first time a truthful complaint. That was when we received the 48 hour warning. Please note that not one of our other neighbors complained about the dogs or their barking.
Every one of our dogs are loved and cherished and we will not get rid of anyone of them. Which means we will have to leave Heidelberg and the Hessequa municipality.
We own a home and two businesses in town. My business, die Naalde-koker, provides work to four seamstresses and one cleaner. I also provide the material people need to make stuff to sell, so that they can feed their families.
My husband has an internet café that gives people access to internet and pc's. It is not easy to sell a house and two businesses in a small town in three months and we will most certainly lose a lot of money. But we will do this before giving up any of our dog-children.
Hessequa Municipality wants to be known as the "caring municipality," but in this case has shown to care nothing for the plight of the voiceless citizens in their area: the rescue animals. It is time that the municipality shows their caring by doing more...
We object to being bullied into getting rid of our dogs when we have been nothing but upstanding citizens in this town, and carers of previously unloved dogs. The man that is making our lives miserable. He is a known problem in town. He has been a backyard breeder for many years and only had his bitch sterilised (against his will) by Sandra Lotz when the poor dog's health got so bad that most of her puppies died.
He also threatens children playing in the street and other dog owners walking their dogs, that he would let his Boerboels out if they don't leave. He watches our house with binoculars (he admitted this to our closest neighbors), and drives slowly by our house and my shop a few times a day.
He has also shown people that he walks around the town with a gun on his hip. I am alone at home a lot when my husband has to work in Cape Town and I do not feel safe in my house with that man watching me. He is a bully and an awful human being, but you threaten me with a criminal record if we don't get rid of our children.
