Kangirsuk man loses prized dog team after residents bitten

Young dog team racer Minnie Ningiuruvik relaxes near one of the dogs in the team she and her father Noah Ningiuruvik led during the 2013 Ivakkak dog team race from Kuujjuaraapik to Puvirnituq. All but two of the team’s dogs were killed May 11. (FILE PHOTO)

(Updated at 10:35 a.m.)

A late afternoon walk by dog team owner Noah Ningiuruvik of Kangirsuk and his dogs ended in disaster May 7.

That’s when his dogs started running wild and stopped listening to him.

Ningiuruvik tried to tether them. But, with one dog in the lead, the pack ran around town where they bit a woman and a little boy and another person, according to the Kativik Regional Government.

Two dogs were killed that day and tested for rabies, the deadly nervous disease which can cause dogs to become uncontrollably excited and bite.

The results came back negative, although generally anyone who gets bitten by a dog in Nunavik receives the vaccination series against rabies, which can also be fatal to humans.

But Kangirsuk’s municipal council voted to kill Ningiuruvik’s entire dog team.

Kangirsuk’s municipal by-law requires owners to restrain their dogs to prevent them from wandering through town. Its workers are also allowed to shoot an animal that is ill or dangerous.

The decision to kill the other dogs in the team, according to a family member who spoke to Nunatsiaq News, was a second blow: first the family was shocked that two of their fellow citizens were bitten by their dogs.

Then, came the decision from the council, which was devastating because the dogs in the team, raised from puppies, were as close as relatives to their owners.

The father-daughter team of Noah and Minnie Ningiuruvik of Kangirsuk have raced their team in the Ivakkak race several times, placing fifth in 2013.

Minnie Ningiuruvik,17, was the only woman in the race in 2013, for the third straight year.

Two dogs from the team, originally from pure husky stock of animals owned by Ivakkak champion Peter Kiatainaq, and two puppies, were spared and will go to a Ningiuruvik relative in another community.

A municipal worker and two Kativik Regional Police Force officers shot the other dogs May 11.

Other stray dogs in the community have also been shot.

Veterinarian Julie Ducrocq, who has accompanied the Ivakkak race for the past three years, suggested another option would have been to place Ningiuruvik’s dogs under quarantine to see if they became ill.

Ducrocq said Ningiuruvik’s team had been vaccinated against rabies. The dogs were healthy and well-trained, she said.

Bu Ducrocq said that it’s also possible for loose dogs in a pack to change their behaviour.

Sled dogs are midway between domesticated and wild dogs — and “they’re still animals,” she said.

Dog problems have caused concern before in Kangirsuk: in 2009 rabid dogs in bit two young children, who then received a series of vaccinations so they wouldn’t develop a fatal case of rabies.

Then, in 2010, a young girl was attacked by dogs on her way home from school.

In these two incidents, municipal workers also killed the dogs involved.