Owner upset dogs put down by RM

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 17/08/2018 (2077 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Onanole business owner Jill Caines’s two dogs died after being taken into custody by the Municipality of Harrison Park, and she wants to know why.

Seized from her property on Aug. 1, Caines received their cremated remains on Aug. 6.

Tamara Sellman, the assistant chief administrative assistant of the RM, declined to comment, citing legal concerns.

As did Reeve Lloyd Ewashko, who said, “Because there’s a reference to potential legal action, there’s nothing I can really say.”

“I just wish that someone would talk to me… They refuse to tell me anything,” Caines said, adding that while she has managed to gather some second-hand comments about what might have happened to her dogs Toby and Max, she has yet to hear an official account that she can rely on.

“They’re my babies; they’re my kids,” she said. “My dogs were my everything. I really don’t know what to do.”

RCMP said the Wasagaming detachment received a complaint on July 28 about a 44-year-old Winnipeg woman and her dog being attacked and bitten by two dogs in Onanole.

“The RCMP advised the RM of what took place and that they would be looking into it,” the spokesperson said in emailed correspondence.

On Aug. 1, the animal control officer for the municipality requested assistance from the RCMP in apprehending the two dogs.

“Our role was to keep the peace while the animal control officers performed their duties,” the spokesperson said.

The dogs were taken away to be quarantined for 10 days, as per policy.

It’s up to the municipality to answer questions regarding what took place after they were seized, the RCMP spokesperson said, as well as what happened once they were put in a kennel in Minnedosa.

Max was a 15-year-old white Great Pyrenees, and Toby was a one-year-old black Pyrenees-rottweiler cross.

Caines said Toby was a playful scamp and Max was her protector, and would sleep on her floor next to her bed every night. She said she was surprised to have learned about the alleged biting incident, since the dogs run around with her grandchildren without incident.

A nearby business owner said the dogs have been an issue in the past, and are known to run loose in the neighbourhood after escaping.

“My main concern is for the poor woman who got attacked,” the business owner, who asked not to be named, said. “It was only a matter of time.”

The extent of the injuries the woman and her dog sustained is unclear.

Since the dogs’ cremated remains arrived at her door, Caines has been independently trying to piece together how they died and were cremated without her knowledge.

“I would never cremate a dog,” she said.

She said nobody from the municipality has been willing to explain what happened to her dogs.

Caines said she has been considering legal action, but her main concern is finding out what happened to her dogs after they were taken from her on Aug. 1.

— Brandon Sun