Dog control is a thankless task

Because their jobs are all about dealing with complaints, and because they deserve so much better than that, I would like to send a public thank you to officers Suzanne Erkidjuk and Travis Dow. I do not know either of them personally, only through seeing them on the job, but I have seen enough to make me want to write this letter.

Dog control is a thankless and demanding task. Whether rounding up loose dogs, responding to vicious dog complaints or following up on reports of abuse and neglect, this is not an easy job, nor a small one.

It is necessary for public safety and health (controlling the spread of rabies) and for prevention of cruelty to animals. In a town this size, it probably could be done full-time by a team of two or three people, instead of two people squeezing it in as part of their many “regular” duties as by-law officers.

Every day these two individuals risk getting bitten by vicious dogs and handle animals that have not been inoculated against rabies. Every week they have to destroy yet more animals whose owners did not care enough to keep them.

Every month they have to put on gloves, cover their noses, and pry the starved corpse of a neglected dog from the ground where it froze (or rotted) and died — chain still wrapped around the porch and tight around the animal’s neck.

And then there is the stress of dealing with people who are angry at them because of the loose dogs, or angry at them because their loose dog was picked up; people who are angry because they were bitten or people who are angry because they have been fined after their dog bit someone; people who are angry when they see kids throwing rocks at dogs, people who are angry because their kid was told not to throw rocks at dogs… .

These officers must sometimes ask themselves why they stick with it, and we should only express gratitude that they do.

For people who love animals and have kind hearts, as these two people clearly do, it must be painful to have to deal with animals that are nothing but skin, bones and a pair of sad eyes, animals that have around their neck a ring of ragged, bloody and infected flesh from a collar that was never loosened when a puppy turned into a dog, animals that have lived their whole lives on four feet of rope, unable to defend themselves from teasing and rock-throwing, and crazy and dangerous as a result.

And it must be painful to end the life of a healthy young animal, knowing that for every dog you put down, another litter will be born and let loose and uncontrolled, and you will have to catch and destroy these too.

The problems we have in town with loose, neglected and vicious dogs are not the fault of bylaw officers, they are the fault of the cruel and thoughtless people who want a puppy but not a dog, or who want a dog but not the responsibility of caring for a living being that is dependent on them.

And yet it is too often the officers who get the complaints and the abuse from the public. Instead, they deserve some thanks and recognition for doing a difficult but necessary job with such dedication, professionalism and humanity.

(Name withheld by request)
Iqaluit