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By Julia Lovett-Squires

Dog Bites

Dog bites continue to be major issue in La Loche and other northern communities

Jan 19, 2024 | 3:29 PM

Dog bites are becoming endemic in La Loche and to Amanda Black, it’s merely a symptom of a larger problem within the community.

“Around here, there are only very few people that actually consider the animal in their yard or in their house a pet,” she said.

Black runs the La Loche Paw Protection Corporation and believes the dogs are biting out of neglect.

“If people would just wake up, open their eyes, and say, ‘Yeah, this is my dog, so It’s my responsibility to take care of this dog,’” she said.

According to Dr. David Edward-Ooi Poon, a northern medical health officer with Saskatchewan Health Authority, there are some areas in the north that have “disproportionately higher number of bites from dogs.”

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He explained his area encompasses mostly towns north of La Ronge and while he can’t identify the communities involved, under 100 bites are recorded annually and roughly half come from two or three individual communities.

“Under surveillance, we will be counting the number of dog bites or animal bites that we have,” he said.

“We don’t necessarily distinguish wild dog from pet dog, but there is a substantial number of dog bites occurring in some communities in the north that appear to be related to a number of wild dogs that are reported,” Poon added.

For public health, while they aren’t worried bites will lead to rabies, they do worry that it will lead to severe infection, injury, or death.

“Rabies in dogs is actually not a major issue here in northern Saskatchewan,” he said.

Based on what the health officer has been told, there aren’t affordable methods of canine birth control and so when the population gets to be too much for the owners, they become wild.

It’s a situation Black finds frustrating and now her shelter has upwards of 47. She said residents will take dogs for a time and then if the dog isn’t trained and messes up the home they’re removed.

“They start fighting with all the other dogs and they start beating on other dogs like it just has to do with neglect,” said Black.

“Straight up neglect, nobody cares.”

In a previous interview with Martha Morin, village administrator and shelter board member, she said the aggressive dogs and biting “actually terrifies a lot of us.”

“There’s stories all over about kids getting bit and even mauled to death. You know, we’re so worried that that might be something that would happen here and the data with the number of dog bites and stuff reinforces that worry.”

According to Poon, the best thing to do is stay away from areas where the dogs are present and if attacked or bitten, report it.

“A community may have to invest or find ways to reduce the population of wild dogs or dogs that are not being managed by an owner or another program,” he said.

If you find yourself near a wild dog, do not interact.

“We say the same thing when it comes to wild animals such as squirrels or bats or foxes,” added Poon.

Another way to stay protected is to ensure you’re vaccinated.

“If you do get bitten by a wild dog, and you do get health care immediately, you’ll have at least the peace of mind knowing that your vaccinations are up to date and that long-standing infections such as tetanus will be mitigated with the vaccination.”

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julia.lovettsquires@pattisonmedia.com

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