Animal Control in Saskatchewan’s North - Column

No one questions that Saskatchewan’s north has its share of social concerns, ranging from high rates of substance abuse and crime to lack of housing and under-employment.

However one of the issues that gets full-blown attention is when a northern community has animal control problems, often following an attack or bite incident. Sadly, the attention given to the issue grows immensely when an animal attack results in a death. Such as it did in January of 2010 when a young boy from Canoe Lake Cree Nation named Keith was mauled to death by a pack of roaming dogs. His story was on everyone’s radar.

The media most recently turned its attention to an incident that occurred in the village of Buffalo Narrows where three of a woman’s dogs were shot by the municipal dog catcher and discarded at the village’s garbage dump.  Immediately afterward, the community was torn between its sympathy for the woman’s loss of beloved family pets and its desire to protect children from packs of aggressive dogs.

The issue was further complicated given that not only were all three dogs clearly wearing collars with identification and contact information, but they were shot without village employees observing the provincially legislated mandatory 72-hour holding time for stray animals.  The reason Buffalo Narrows had issue with observing the 72-hour holding time is because the village is too small to have a holding facility for strays.

To the leaders and administrators of Buffalo Narrows and other northern communities, this ongoing public safety concern has a simple solution.  A village employee can immediately destroy any animal that is roaming without an owner as if it were an immediate potential threat to public safety.

But to the animal-loving people who got wind of this latest story, it was a sad and tragic tale of a cruel backwards policy that gave the village a right to kill anyone’s family pet on a whim.  Undoubtedly it was an embarrassment and wake-up call to the north in general having highlighted several harsh realities associated with northern community living.

One of the contributing factors is that northern Saskatchewan is an excellent breeding environment for both owned and stray animals. Over time young animals are brought into communities from outside sources like pet stores and breeders.

These are family pets that grow up with the children of a community and roam the community alongside them. But a young animal with no access to veterinary care or the facilities to perform their spay or neuter will grow into another breeding animal running loose in the community.  And it seems as though the entire community is unaware that one single pair of breeding animals and their offspring are capable of producing over 500 more animals in the span of three years.

Anyone involved in animal welfare or animal rescue is well aware that the entire animal control issue in northern Saskatchewan is riddled with misguided, ineffective, and inhumane attempts at animal control.
Sadly, dog culling is the most common practice where a community pays for one or more of its employees to go out shooting stray and roaming dogs arbitrarily to reduce the animal population.

The biggest problem with this practice is that it is a brief, futile band-aid solution to a problem that requires a long-term strategic approach.  Why no one is discussing that approach until their communities are swarming with packs of aggressive, starving dogs is beyond me.

Ultimately it’s a preventable issue that leaders and the general public cannot realistically refuse to address in between incidents of animal attacks. There are solutions within the reach of even the most remote communities and it all begins with responsible pet ownership.

With that in mind there are a handful of things every family must consider before bringing an animal into their lives.  First, be sure you can commit to caring for your pet for its entire life which can be up to 18 to 20 years.  Second, be sure you can remove its ability to breed by having a sterilization surgery done by a licensed veterinarian. Remember that it’s a one-time expense that is the only completely effective method of preventing over-population.

If a community wants to control its animal population, it needs to stop the problem at the source. Owners have to be held accountable for their pets and the offspring of their pets. Owned animals should not be allowed to roam or breed at will and community governments should set policies or bylaws making it mandatory to have all companion animals sterilized by a certain age and kept confined to their owner’s property when unsupervised.

And if an animal has no owner, then a community should have those animals humanely euthanized by a veterinarian. The associated cost of this policy and enforcing it does not outweigh the potential for a community member being injured or killed by roaming animals.

The bottom line is that animals roaming freely and breeding recklessly is not a social problem that any outside agency will fix for the north.  It has to be a community effort that begins with the simple awareness that the normal animal control practices like dog culling are just not working.