Minimor
Well-Known Member
There has been a disturbing thing happening to dogs in southeastern Manitoba the past year--more than 50 pets have gone missing in the area, many of them disappearing right out of their own back yards. I first heard of this last fall on FB--someone reported that they had scared off "someone" in a white van--that someone was on the end of their driveway trying to lure the family dog over to the van. Many other dogs were already missing at that point in time. Since then--more have gone missing.
This first made the news a few days ago--that newspaper report suggested that the dogs are being taken for use as "bait" for fighting dogs. Now this very disturbing thing has happened:
http://winnipeg.ctvnews.ca/pet-owners-with-missing-dogs-unsettled-after-carcass-of-skinned-animal-found-in-ditch-1.1109403?playVideo
I will be very interested to hear what conclusions the vet comes to on this--what species is this animal, and what was the cause of death. IMO the picture looks more like a lab than a coyote, but I could be totally wrong.
This is happening 100+ miles from me, but it is still worrisome because 100 miles isn't all that far; there is nothing stopping the thieves from driving out to a different area to pick up dogs. My dogs will not go to strangers, but they could probably be drugged with tainted meat--and then picked up once they were sedated. I was warned once last fall that there was a dark truck trying to steal dogs in this general area--and just two days prior to that warning there was a dark grey truck driving around here. It went past the front of our place, going really slow which is why I started watching it. It then went around & drove past on our back road. By then I was out in the back pasture with the horses & when the truck slowed down to a crawl I waved at it. It then drove away & I didn't see it again. It could have been joyriders just looking around, or it could have been someone up to no good---I never knew. But, I figure if the bad guys know that they have been noticed & someone is watching them they are likely to move on to somewhere else--and so I try to make my interest obvious. If they aren't bad guys, well, no harm in acting friendly.
Two years ago someone was stealing a specific breed of dog--golden retrievers--from a community southwest of here--no one ever knew what became of those dogs, but after several of them disappeared from the area the thefts stopped.
This first made the news a few days ago--that newspaper report suggested that the dogs are being taken for use as "bait" for fighting dogs. Now this very disturbing thing has happened:
http://winnipeg.ctvnews.ca/pet-owners-with-missing-dogs-unsettled-after-carcass-of-skinned-animal-found-in-ditch-1.1109403?playVideo
I will be very interested to hear what conclusions the vet comes to on this--what species is this animal, and what was the cause of death. IMO the picture looks more like a lab than a coyote, but I could be totally wrong.
This is happening 100+ miles from me, but it is still worrisome because 100 miles isn't all that far; there is nothing stopping the thieves from driving out to a different area to pick up dogs. My dogs will not go to strangers, but they could probably be drugged with tainted meat--and then picked up once they were sedated. I was warned once last fall that there was a dark truck trying to steal dogs in this general area--and just two days prior to that warning there was a dark grey truck driving around here. It went past the front of our place, going really slow which is why I started watching it. It then went around & drove past on our back road. By then I was out in the back pasture with the horses & when the truck slowed down to a crawl I waved at it. It then drove away & I didn't see it again. It could have been joyriders just looking around, or it could have been someone up to no good---I never knew. But, I figure if the bad guys know that they have been noticed & someone is watching them they are likely to move on to somewhere else--and so I try to make my interest obvious. If they aren't bad guys, well, no harm in acting friendly.
Two years ago someone was stealing a specific breed of dog--golden retrievers--from a community southwest of here--no one ever knew what became of those dogs, but after several of them disappeared from the area the thefts stopped.
