Tourism lull led to ‘execution-style killings’ of 100 B.C. sled dogs: Reports

[Unforgiven]

Actually I'm a supporter of the SPCA and your right about the tragic statistics that go beyond the massacre at Whitsler but in this case how these dogs were put down was brutal and unnecessary and that's what's at issue..

Oh well you get angry at someone being stupid? I mean I am with ya but shet there's a lot of it about. It's going to get worse. Hell look at the seal hunt. That's not humane at all. Yet we're out promoting it and trying to open up new markets for it. Now were aiming for the dolfin and monkey eaters in hopes of lowering the amount the hunt costs taxpayers.

These guys that killed these dogs are idiots. They will get a slap for it and everyone will carry on business as usual. Next time, they will just take a little more care so they don't get caught.

 

[karrie]

Do I support the SPCA in investigating and prosecuting over this? Heck yes. Will I be partaking in a boycott campaign and changing my facebook picture to a dog to spread the word? Um, no.

 

[Colpy]

Okay. I'm going to play Devil's Advocate here.

Let's get a few things straight.

First of all, there was supposedly an effort made to adopt out the dogs. It failed, nobody wanted them.

And little wonder. Sled dogs do NOT make good pets. They are a couple of steps closer to wolves than most dogs, without some of the negative aspects of wolf character bred out of them. This would go double for ones raised in the pack environment of several sled teams. Even if they are taken into a family that knows how to treat them, they require a LOT of exercise, and food.....

Sled dogs would soon eat you into bankruptcy.......and had the owners spent ALL their money on the welfare of All the dogs, when the company went bankrupt, ALL the dogs would have been put down.

So, the choice is bye-bye all the dogs later, or some of the dogs sooner.

It comes down to method.

Killing animals you own is not illegal, (nor immoral) if it is done humanely. A shotgun blast to the brain pan at close range with a 12 ga., even loaded with heavy birdshot, would be instant death, like switching off a light. Now this should be done one at a time, away from the other dogs, by someone you has actually killed an animal before, and understands both the physiology of the animal, and the use of the weapon. It would be an exceptionally unpleasant task..........that's for sure.

So, where does the information come from ??? I mean, the details of the killings??? I haven't seen any of that in the news reports.

I suspect they come from the guy's compensation claim.

Need I say more???

BTW, we are currently having a problem with mice, which we poison. The poison causes their blood to thin to the point they bleed internally, are put into agony, and hopefully pull themselves out of the house in search of water before they die an excrutiating death.

Funny......no one is charging me.

I wonder how many of the people crazed over this subject use poison, or hire exterminators if they have a vermin problem?

Without a second thought.....

 

[CUBert]

The killings weren't done humanely, or legally. Apparently Whistler attempted to do it in a humane way when they contacted a veterarian, but the vet refused to kill healthy animals. Instead they were slashed and shot by a guy who was probably drunk as hell on Vodka and now apparently the inhumane way in which he was forced to kill the dogs has now brought him post-traumatic stress disorder.

 

[Colpy]

The killings weren't done humanely, or legally. Apparently Whistler attempted to do it in a humane way when they contacted a veterarian, but the vet refused to kill healthy animals. Instead they were slashed and shot by a guy who was probably drunk as hell on Vodka and now apparently the inhumane way in which he was forced to kill the dogs has now brought him post-traumatic stress disorder.

You could be right.....the guy (according to the Globe and Mail) claims he wrestled the dogs to the ground, held them there with his foot, then shot them.

I think anyone that believes this has never played with a large dog, to say nothing of a sled dog!!!!

BUT he was certainly not "forced" to do it inhumanely............if he had to use a knife as well as a shotgun, he is a complete moron.

The point is we should wait and see......this unpleasantness could have been done very humanely, with a firearm.

 

[Unforgiven]

Maybe tourism shouldn't involve what turns out to be disposable life when profits shrink.

 

[Colpy]

Maybe tourism shouldn't involve what turns out to be disposable life when profits shrink.

Well, that's an entirely different argument.......and I'm not sure we would disagree.

 

[ironsides]

The SPCA is not much better " Officials at the animal protection agency said they didn’t realize the dogs would be brutally slaughtered. But they said they told the man the dogs would not make good pets and were not adoptable.
Senior animal protection officer Eileen Drever confirmed she was contacted last spring by the man, but can’t recall if it was in April or May. The cull happened on April 21 and April 23, 2010.

She said she first learned of the cull last Friday when a WorkSafeBC report providing details of the “execution-style” killings of the sled dogs became public. The report said they were destroyed for economic reasons.
Read more: Man who killed sled dogs asked SPCA for help on two separate occasions





How wild could these dogs have been, they were used to give rides to the public. No one from the SPCA even looked at them.

Could have sold them here in the United States good sled dogs are fairly expensive and in demand.

 

[karrie]

Sled dogs are no more pets than cattle are. They have a tight pack bond, but very little bond with humans. They do not 'give humans rides', they pull a sled as a pack, when commanded to. On their own, outside of a pack, huskies are notorious for going stir crazy and killing smaller pets within a home for the thrill of the chase. Perhaps a single sled dog pack would have been raised in a home, but a pack like this, working a large scale operation, no.

The outpouring on facebook continues... long emotional pleas about the sheer number of dogs killed, please change your profile pic, etc. Not a single post about the death toll of civil war in Egypt though. hmmm.

 

[petros]

Huskies are old school sled dogs. Hybrids are the are thing for quite sometime now.

 

[lone wolf]

I just can't imagine a greyhound cross sleeping it off in a snowbank....

 

[karrie]

Huskies are old school sled dogs. Hybrids are the are thing for quite sometime now.

These were husky crosses according to the articles I've read.... when we rescued one (husky shepherd) from the lake my parents summer at, the SPCA told us they could take her only because they didn't have any other husky crosses to rehome at the time. They explained how difficult they were to home, for the exact reason we couldn't keep her... she kept hunting everything not human. That's a husky trait apparently, no matter how 'hybrid' they are.

 

[ironsides]

I am a little cynical when it comes to people, at least a animal can be predicted, and even trusted. We have had 2 husky's and 2 Samoyeds over the past few years, and not one of them has ever tried to kill or hurt another animal. Walk up and take a sniff to get acquainted but that was all. Ignored small game and other animals, except for one Samoyed who liked to herd ducks on land or in a lake.

 

[petros]

I have a friend with 23 dogs last I heard. She hasn't had a pure Husky bitch for over 15 years. Huskies do fine as pets if they've never been part of a team but they are definetly not house dogs. They NEED to run and they don't do well in the summer heat.

Keep in mind it was newspaper types that wrote that article post event occuring and it's based on hearsay. The photo they chose is a stock image of a real husky in boreal spruce. That is not a picture of the dogs from Whistler. At all.

To keep on track ...was the killing wrong? It depends how you look at it.

If you can't give the pets away to good homes in a population of 2 Million + people then
A. There is something disturbing about the people of the Lower Mainland and near by Islands
or
B. This guy and the SPCA didn't try hard enough.

 

[Johnny Utah]

The issue is how these Dogs were executed inhumanely and how the SPCA obviously dropped the ball and the fact they have to request funds from the BC Government to conduct an investigation is telling of what state they're in. This has nothing to do with Native women, the situation in Egypt or anything else..

 

[petros]

SPCA is volunteers not some magical all pet knowing deity. (At the local level) but they do have access to community minutes on the airwaves.

 

[karrie]

I am a little cynical when it comes to people, at least a animal can be predicted, and even trusted. We have had 2 husky's and 2 Samoyeds over the past few years, and not one of them has ever tried to kill or hurt another animal. Walk up and take a sniff to get acquainted but that was all. Ignored small game and other animals, except for one Samoyed who liked to herd ducks on land or in a lake.

Presumably they were raised with you though, not raised in a pack outside?

The issue is how these Dogs were executed inhumanely and how the SPCA obviously dropped the ball and the fact they have to request funds from the BC Government to conduct an investigation is telling of what state they're in. This has nothing to do with Native women, the situation in Egypt or anything else..

The SPCA is a luxury. The fact that luxury groups suffer during times of financial crunch is not news.

 

[bill barilko]

.....the SPCA told us they could take her only because they didn't have any other husky crosses to rehome at the time. They explained how difficult they were to home, for the exact reason we couldn't keep her... she kept hunting everything not human. That's a husky trait apparently, no matter how 'hybrid' they are.

I grew up with a Husky/Shepherd cross and he was something of a cross to bear.

Smart friendly but would kill anything he didn't like especially other dogs.

Husky w/killer instinct + Shepherd w/herding instinct = some awful incidents.

 

[karrie]

I grew up with a Husky/Shepherd cross and he was something of a cross to bear.

Smart friendly but would kill anything he didn't like especially other dogs.

Husky w/killer instinct + Shepherd w/herding instinct = some awful incidents.

exactly. I could have left my kids with that dog all day long and known they were safe and sound... but the yard would have been littered with the corpses of anything that came near them.

 

[talloola]

there should have been a plan set up when the dogs were purchased, as to their destination after
the event, obviously 'money' was the only issue thought about, both by the seller of the dogs in
the first place, and the buyer as well, and when all the dust settled, "oh yeah, what are we going
to do with these 'fu***n dogs, they are a nuisance now.

wonder who and where they purchased that many sled dogs, and what was the conversation at that time.

this makes my skin crawl, and I wonder what the people who sold the dogs are thinking right now, they
have their pockets bulging with the money received for the sale, then what, turned a blind eye to
the eventual outcome of those dogs. It is shameful, on both ends.