I was bullied into leaving my forever home!

Why were we forced to leave? Jingles (formerly Sawyer) is 19" tall and the park rules are 2 pets, maximum 15" tall.  Well, here's the thing, there is a Chocolate Lab and a Doberman that have been given exceptions; definitely over 15" tall. There are at least 3 people I know of that have  3 or more pets. Again given an exception. 

The rules say no RV's or commercial vehicles and at one point, I walked the park and had 22 pictures of RV's and boats in peoples driveways... so why me?  I am in the process of trying to get a hearing with the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal.

My Boy

My dog is my companion, he stabilizes my PTSD, He makes me laugh. The people who expect me to make a choice; my home or my dog, don’t realize it isn’t a choice. It is a mental health issue and I don’t see how I can survive without him. Having to chose I can see why there are so many homeless people who have emotional support animals.

I am at my wits-end trying to figure out what to do. I have gone so far in debt that I won’t get out unless I stay put. I finished off the exterior so that I could sell. Didn’t matter that I redid the interior, it still looked 50 years old on the exterior. I am screwed if I have to move I won’t be able to come up with 1st months rent and pet deposit, won’t be able to maintain the credit payments, so only alternative… homelessness…. What the heck. 

We are just a 65 year old woman with an emotional support need and a dog that fulfills that need.

I have had him certified as an emotional support animal, I have a note from the doctor saying that I need to keep him and they are just ignoring that, and me.

The house that I built! So here I sit in my living room the setting sun is streaming in from my beautiful 3 windowed door. The sun is filtering in through window as well; the sheer drapes. It is cozy and comfortable a touch of modern with a touch of rustic. Eclectic.. that mostly suits who I am.

I sit with a challenge/dilemma that I have no idea how to take on. I have my beautiful, sweet and adorable furry friend. Sometimes, as now, he is so tired that he rolls over on his side and chews one of the many branches he drags home, too tired to sit up, too tired to hold onto the stick. Just wants to make sure he’s touching it so no one takes it from him, thinks that he’s abandoned it. Rolls onto his back and thinks somehow picking up a stick that is 3.5 inches thick and 16 inches long… if he’s on his back and manages to hold onto it, that when it falls on his face; which it inevitably will, it somehow won’t hurt.

Silly dog! I adore him. I honestly don’t think I can survive without him. At this point it wouldn’t make a difference if I were willing to let him go. I have run up so much debt trying to get this place finished inside and out that staying isn’t really an option either. 

Midas was 15 last May when I finally let him go. He was 135 lbs and just over 28 inches from the floor to the top of his shoulder. I look at videos of him and I realize now that I should have let him go much earlier. He was old, and he was tired. Most of all he was loyal. 

That last while, he would stop during our walk and I’d ask if he wanted to go home and he would hesitate and then get going again. He figured I wanted to keep walking, so he would. His age snuck up on me. We used to walk 8 km a day. When he blew his acl (knee) then the other acl, he was only walking far enough to relieve himself. Once he blew the second one, it was difficult for him to squat to poop. 

I attempted to make a brace for him. Epic fail. Then one day I squealed into the SPCA and asked at the front desk if they knew of anywhere I could get a brace. The vets all wanted $5,000 per knee to operate and if I’d had the money I might have paid it… maybe. But the point was moot as I didn’t have the money, but he couldn’t squat so I had to do something. 

She told me about OrthoDog.com. I ordered a harness/brace set-up, for the equivalent of $500 Canadian and two weeks later he was chugging along. It took 2 and a half months and the walks slowly went from 2km a day back up to the 8km a day. We were back in business…

3 years later, he was getting slower and eventually, it became obvious I was going to have to let him go. In that 3 years I had acquired a mobile home. It was really something, I had gone from living in a run-down dump that allowed me to have my dog; I assumed I would never own a home again. All my money went into the rent.

I was working with a young lady who was a mere 22 years old and she was buying a 3 bedroom home. It was on Native Land so it was a house with a land lease. None the less, she was becoming a home owner and I, well I wasn’t!

I shook my head and thought that if she could, then there ought to be a way for me to own too. So I did a bit of finagling, juggled some payments and came up with a down payment. Step one. 

Then I found a place that was pretty much falling down. Put an offer and soon I was a home owner too! Well mine was a mobile home. 

The property manager gave me an exception for the dog cause he was going on 15 years old. So, next thing I knew I was packing up and moving into my own place.

I am an Interior Designer, by trade. “This looks like it could be fun!” Now the difference between an Interior Designer and an Interior Decorator is simple. A designer moves walls and a decorator moves pillows. So now I had my own sandbox to play in.

Before I got possession I had done a 3 D drawing that I had played with and manipulated for weeks and lo-and-behold I flipped rooms and took down walls and created a beautiful place. On paper… so I figured the first thing I would do when I got possession was to redo the bathroom… it needed it. Well actually the whole place needed it. 

So I started in the bathroom the first day off I had, after I had moved in. Took off the glass shower doors. I am NOT a shower person. Mostly cause I am allergic to Chlorine and when you run a bath you can wait for the Chlorine to dissipate… can’t in a shower. 

I had ordered the materials I was going to need to get the center rooms done and then… found out the lawyer for the seller had neglected to process the Probate paperwork through the courts. So I had to stop everything until it cleared.

 I got possession July 1st and it was November 17th before it cleared. I paid pad rent from July although I didn’t own it yet!

The next weekend I was going to tear apart the bathroom and wouldn’t you know it… the materials had been sitting in the workshop since July and no one told me it leaked… all the drywall was wet and of course moldy.

When I started the drywall $11.47 a sheet, due to COVID and all the building that was going on, by the time I finished the drywall was $33 a sheet. I had a budget of $25,000 and that was going to do the interior. I figured I’d get that done and paid for and then start on the outside in a year or two.

Well, when I looked at Midas in early April, I realized that the poor guy was suffering. Stubborn, but suffering. I decided I had no choice and arranged to have him released from the body that had served him well, but was just plain worn out.

I had heard of a service where they; the vet would come out and he wouldn’t have to leave the comfort of his home. I called. I took him for one last walk around the Mobile Home Park and he decided he wanted to visit our friend Carl. He’s gone now too.

As we walked home I ran into to the Park Manager who said he needed to be on a leash. I had the leash in my hand. I told her this was the last time she’d be seeing him and told her why.

When I had signed the lease she asked if I would be replacing him once he was gone and I said NO. He suffered with separation anxiety. (if he couldn’t see me, like when I was paying for gas; he would start tugging on the interior panels of my vehicle) saw me pull at something to open the door! 

I couldn’t leave him with anyone, so I had been with him for the entire 11.5 years I had him. Didn’t think for a second I would be rushing out to replace him! Wrong!!

I let him go on the 2ndof May and end of June I was looking for a replacement.

You see I suffer with PTSD. I thought I had beaten it. HA, one doesn’t beat PTSD. See while I had Midas it had been dormant cause I was getting emotional support and unconditional love! When he was gone my PTSD came back with a vengeance!! 

I had no reason to get up in the morning, no reason to get dressed or leave the house and I felt the world collapsing around me.

I recognized what was happening. I started looking for an emotional support animal to help me from giving up, giving in. 

I sent a couple of pictures to the Park Manager and asked if any of them would work. After all, the dogs I was looking at were much smaller than Midas. The first three were too big and she said no. 

Then, I found Sawyer; jingles. He was small. Well a whole lot smaller 19” than Midas was 28”. In all this, she never once referred me to the park rules. (that he would have to be under 15”). I thought it had it had to be a medium sized dog. 

All my stuff was in storage so I didn’t even think about getting the rules out of storage to read them.

I took on Sawyer as a foster. I picked him up Sunday night and when we got back from Vernon, I took him for a walk. 

Our very own “Mrs. Cravits” asked me if I was babysitting, I said no I was fostering. Well Monday morning I called the office first thing and Mrs Cravits had already told her that I had Sawyer. 

She said she would come over and it took 8 days (not an immediate no as in the other requests) for me to get an answer and the answer was NO. By then he was “family”. So, I went over her head to the owner of the property. 

It took him 3 weeks to get back to me, too. He had to check with the CEO. Now I have had Sawyer for weeks. There is no way I can let him go. Adopt a child and see if you can let go weeks later. For me, the emotional support he offered was akin to being supported by a human being; better in my experience. I had offered up a Doctors Note that I required him as an emotional support animal.

When I discussed it with the owner, we talked about the fact that he has a Golden Doodle and I said, “you couldn’t live here with him” Too Big! Then I asked if his Golden Doodle could walk 8 km a day every day. He responded with, “ he does on the weekends”. I said, “could he maintain 8 km a day 7 days a week; 365 days a year?” sure he could for about 3 weeks and then he’d be exhausted…

I walk with my dog 8km a day 365 days a year. So I need something more sturdy than a shih tzu or chihuahua! And he shares my couch and my bed… shouldn’t I be allowed to chose who I sleep with?

So, what he agreed to was, to allow me to finish off my reno and put the place up for sale. He said,” and Angela I am sure it will take a long while to get contractors at this point”. 

So here I am a year later. I offered to drive my dog in my car off the property and walk him away from the Mobile Home Park, so that all the people who have little dogs didn’t have to encounter mine. True to my word I have for over a year. Twice a day I put my dog in my car and drive just off the property so I can walk him. 

The day the for sale sign went up I stopped driving him, we walk. We walk proud. This is our home, we have been discriminated on, made to feel unwanted. I bought my home. I rent the pad. I don’t get to sit outside with my dog because the owners of the little dogs allow their dogs to relieve themselves on my property. Our property. 

My dog can’t relieve himself in his own yard. Why? Because a woman who allows her dogs to pee in my yard is afraid of “bigger” dogs, so she complained because we; my dog and I were sitting on my deck in my yard. He was on a chain, couldn’t get within 15 feet of her dogs, but he chose to snap at them while they peed on my lawn, so she complained to the Park Manager and again I am told we have to go. Would her dogs snap if a dog peed in their yard… I think that is a natural response. Not an aggressive one!

There was one other incident: one day as I am letting my dog out of the car; on leash. An older fella in a 4 wheeled mobility scooter; who tends to speed… came whipping by and as he did, he ran over my dog’s foot. He just kept going and in the melee, I let go of his leash. Well, he went chasing after him. Scooter metal to the pedal, dog chasing full speed; barking, telling him off and me… trying to catch up. 

I yelled, “would you stop already” and of course Mrs. Cravits comes out to see what’s going on. Well speedy makes a u-turn comes back to me, dog right behind him. He asks if the dog is ok, cause he ran over his foot. Dog lets him pet him… he just wanted to let him know “what the heck did you run over my foot for?”

Mrs. Cravits gets on the phone and less than an hour later Park Manager is at my door telling me he has to go! I say, did you know that he ran over his foot as he got out of my car?” Her response well I didn’t see that.” My response, “neither did Mrs. Cravits!”

All of my immediate neighbors have offered to write letters attesting to the fact that he is a good dog, that he doesn’t bark or disturb them.

I currently have a discrimination case in front of the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal, waiting on them to set a date for the hearing of my case.

UPDATE:

I sold and moved out on August 28th  2025. The rumors that were circulating in the park had made it impossible for “us” to stay there. It no longer felt safe. Apparently the rumor mill; old people with nothing better to do that make up stories… first it was that Jingles bit someone, then it was he killed a dog and last I heard he had killed 2 dogs. In the years that we lived there he was off leash exactly once, the day the old guy ran over his foot with his mobility scooter. He was not able to react fast enough to avoid hitting him. If he had ran over one of the many very senior residents, there would have been a totally different and more appropriate response, Instead of telling me my dog had to go, I am thinking the Property Manager would have gone to the old guy and asked for an explanation and would have been told that it was not acceptable behaviour, instead they blamed the dog for getting run over!

I did a search on the realty site for anything in Canada under $50,000 that had at least 1 bedroom and got a response of over 4,000 homes, and Manitoba had over 430 of them.  I chose Manitoba as my 95 year old mother lives in Winnipeg.

I bought a house sight-unseen and have busied myself for months trying to make it livable. If I had been allowed to stay in my home, I would have had the trailer paid off this year and been able to retire debt-free next year.

I am now 68 and will have to go back to work to be able to literally keep the lights on, as my Hydro bills are running over $700 a month which is pretty much half of my pensions! I will most likely never be able to retire.

The good news is that my dog now has a huge fenced-in yard. He deserves it, as the many years of being shunned in the park changed his personality adversely. He used to be very social and now he is extremely protective of both myself and our home.

I wish they would have done what they were supposed to do, allow me to have my support animal and just leave us in peace to enjoy our home. I struggle daily with the challenges of a house that is over 130 years old. Every window is broken and they are all custom sized so it will be thousands of dollars and years of working, to replace them, so that eventually the hydro bill and the drafts are much less.

I have a list of a number of contacts that might be able to assist you if you find yourself being bullied.