EABAMETOONG — On the dusty dirt roads of Eabametoong (Fort Hope First Nation), there are hundreds of roaming dogs.
“Good afternoon, Fort Hope. This is Knight. I work for Matawa as an animal guardian and I want to spread awareness about animal wellness and taking care of your pets,” Knight Shawinimash said, as his voice broke in over a Metallica song on the airwaves of the community radio station serving Eabametoong.
Eabametoong is about 360 kilometres north of Thunder Bay. It’s home to 1,300 people – and about 600 roaming dogs. Even among First Nations with unmanageably large dog populations, that ratio is uniquely challenging.
But Shawinimash believes his community is up to the challenge.
“We need to improve fertility rates so we can control the population on the reserve," he read from his cell phone into the studio microphone.
"There’s an all-week spay and neuter clinic today... It’s important to spay and neuter so we don’t have to worry about aggression. For the people who didn’t show up today, please bring them down tomorrow or the next day. If you want to surrender your dog, just let us know. We’re also doing vaccinations. So, you’ve got to neuter your dogs because it’s important for community safety. It’s now or never, OK?”
It was "now or never" for these dogs for a few reasons. A long run of hard work had turned animal wellness into a priority all at once and now, everyone involved had to pull off a radical transformation.
The free veterinary clinic at Eabametoong, which ran in the fall, was part of the Animal Services Pilot Project by Matawa First Nations, a tribal council representing nine First Nations, eight of which are in Treaty 9 territory.
For many First Nation communities in Ontario’s northwest, wild dogs have become a serious problem.
In Eabametoong, dogs were everywhere, but walking these dirt roads, there were times when it was difficult to notice. Some were tied to porches. Others visited in the yards or ran well-tread circuits on the trails between homes. We might not see any dogs for a block or two, or a few may run by in a pack. On other blocks, slowing our walking pace might bring out five or eight.
A memorable blend of sounds and smells hung in Eabametoong’s community centre as five veterinarians and 10 other staff from all over Ontario spayed, neutered, and immunized dozens of dogs with rudimentary equipment over tarps, duct-taped to folding tables.
Shawinimash has one dog of his own, a mixed breed he calls Big Ears. But becoming his community’s first-ever animal guardian was never his lifelong dream. Getting the “rez dog” numbers under control and fostering a healthy culture among roving dogs suddenly became a professional occupation.
“It’s one of the best opportunities I’ve got since I’ve been an adult,” the former security guard said. “‘The dog catcher,’ they call me. I’m just the protector of the animals. I don’t mind what people say. People say a lot of things.”
At the community centre, only a moment after Shawinimash returned from the radio station, the centre’s door blew open and a man leaned into it. He held 97-pound Kash against his chest. The dog resisted.
Kash had seething gashes down his back left leg from having been in a fight the night before. When he resisted human contact, vet staff sedated him, placed him in the back of a truck, and hauled down to the clinic.
Former College of Veterinarians of Ontario president Dr. Patty Lechten supervised as staff processed Kash and began examining his leg. She said she’d been in two dozen missions around the world, including 10 in northern Ontario. She’d never seen so many dogs wounded by fighting in heat as she saw in Eabametoong.Lechten celebrated her 35th anniversary as owner of the Barrie-based Allandale Veterinary Hospital clinic while she was up north. Her team worked all hours, treating many dogs who were facing emergent, diverse health problems and were only able to receive what care they had because professionals happened to be visiting.
“It would be nice if there were veterinarians who came every few months – even telemedicine or something,” Lechten said. She pointed to a dog she gave antibiotics to, but who needed x-rays and bloodwork. The animal would have had the care it needed, she said, if it lived elsewhere.
“The last place we were at in Long Lake [#58 First Nation] – and that was on the highway – I euthanized an elderly dog, not because he was critical that day but because the owners were afraid he’d become critical and they wouldn’t be able to get him seen. So the decision was to euthanize him at that point, rather than run the risk.”
The clinic was the only option for Shawinimash’s cousin, Kay Ostamus. Her first dog was nearly a year old and became excitable around the nine children between the ages of four and 14 who live with her. She had been willing to fly hundreds of kilometres to have him neutered but staffing shortages throughout northwestern Ontario’s animal welfare sector left her without options. She took it to heart when her cousin told her the clinic was coming to town and it was now or never.
“It’s hard to get vet care in Thunder Bay or Dryden area. It’s a long wait list,” she said. “I tried getting him a vet, but they told me it’s a two-year wait, so I said, ‘I might as well get him fixed while there’s an opportunity to get fixed.’”
Ostamus conceded that Eabametoong’s wild dog situation must sound strange to those who have never been there.
“They’re not all wild. It’s not just aggressive dogs. There are good dogs here. There are dogs that are loved,” she explained.
“There are some dogs that don’t have homes, and that makes me sad. If they don’t recognize you, they’ll bark at you, or even if you’re walking your dog around the neighbourhood, those dogs will come and get scary and I’ll have to start yelling, ‘hey get out of here!’ They don’t see him in this neighbourhood because he’s a home dog.”
The week-long clinic spent the last of a $500,000 federal pilot project envelope that had already funded similar efforts in Aroland, Constance Lake, Ginoogaming, Longlac #58, and Webequie First Nations. Indigenous Services Minister Patty Hajdu announced Canada would fund a $1.5-million renewal and expansion, three days before the team flew to Eabametoong.
Hajdu teared up speaking at a hangar at the Thunder Bay Airport. She said she ordered the pilot project because Matawa’s voices made her see the connection between colonialism, animal health, and community health.
“Every time I see a First Nations person get up at a mic – and this happens regularly – to remind Canadians that they’re human, I sob uncontrollably because I cannot believe that we have to continually be reminded that First Nations people are humans,” Hajdu said, as her voice shook and her eyes welled up. “And they have connections with animals. And they care about their children. And they care about the land, and they care about their communities. We have to do better as a country. So it was my honour to fight for this program.”
Despite the federal commitment that clinics would continue, there was another reason it was “now or never” for Eabametoong’s dog owners. Chief and council had just passed a bylaw that mandated every dog to be spayed or neutered. It also restricted dog ownership to two per household.
Stabilizing would be an adjustment. The household of one man who saw breeding “get out of control” held 17 dogs.
Chief Sol Atlookan saw that home as a microcosm of a community-wide, 70-year-old, colonial creation.The issue with wild dogs, he explained, began in the 1950s when the federal government made it mandatory for children to attend school in Eabametoong. Where the reserve stands now was then a focal point for a number of families who lived on the land, spread throughout the surrounding lakes.
Atlookan’s family had six or seven sleigh dogs they used for hunting and travelling, as well as a female for breeding.“When the school opened here in Eabamatoong, the government said that all the kids had to be in school. Shortly after that, we started having snow machines coming in,” he recalled. “[Sleigh] dogs became loose dogs. We didn’t require any more dog teams. As a result of that, there was no control of our dogs, in terms of population.”
Atlookan hoped to set an example by being first in line on the first day the clinic opened. He led his dog Domi, whose namesake is a testament to his “hardcore” Toronto Maple Leafs fandom.
The man who has sat in the chief’s chair for 14 of the last 40 years saw the medium-term clinic funding as an opportunity to finally take bold action locally. He bet that the combination of what available pet care was possible and what enforcement could be arranged might finally bring the dog population under control.
“There are quite a few dogs that are well looked after, but this is a community problem. It has come from council to council over the years. And if the community wants to control their dogs, the community has to do their part.”
Each of Matawa’s nine First Nations has its own plan but they all come together under Judi Cannon. Matawa’s lead coordinator for animal welfare services has never seen any roving dog problem as complex as Eabametoong, but she’s also never seen a moment with the potential of this one – if it’s done right.
“We’re at an exciting tipping point,” Cannon said. “We knew we were in a crisis in the north and it’s either going to go well or it’s going to go back. It went better than expected because of the funds, of course, but because Canada doesn’t want to stand for this anymore.”
Cannon is now setting her sights on Ontario, which passed Bill 171 last year to regulate the animal care industry and mandate standards. First Nations are not mentioned in the law. The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Agribusiness did not respond to Ricochet's question regarding whether any Indigenous consultation took place.Bill 171’s regulations are currently under development and Ontario has invited Cannon to sit at that table but she says huge strides must be made to accommodate fly-in First Nation communities.
“If you look at the barriers, they’re only reflected in northern Ontario – specifically, remote Indigenous communities,” Cannon said of the legislation.
“If we’re looking at delivery for services in the north where we don’t have enough veterinarians, why aren’t we using different service models like other countries, like para-veterinarians or community-based vaccination programs, like the one they’re introducing in Manitoba, where community vaccination programs have laypeople licensed to vaccinate animals, so there’s a protection against rabies or parvo? They can be devastating to a community.
“This isn’t rocket science. What this is, is a will and a determination to do this.”
The consequences of failure extend to public health. In early October, a child in Timiskaming died from rabies contracted from a bat. Matawa First Nations have no mechanism for monitoring and Cannon expressed worry that this case was only 450 kilometres away.
“If rabies were to come to a community, it would be very dangerous because of that lack of education, resources, surveillance, protection, and primary care for people. That combination is very dangerous for both people and for pets,” Cannon added.
By the fourth day, the traffic at the clinic dried up. Shawinimash went door-to-door to tell every family that the bylaw was coming and this would be their only chance to comply.
He credited that effort to a final surge. By the time the prop airplane carrying the veterinarians and their support staff took off, over 200 animals had been spayed, neutered and inoculated – a third of Eabametoong’s dog population.
The plane whirled out of earshot and he noticed the silence right away. The dull roar of aggressive dog barking to which he’d become accustomed was gone.
“It’s peaceful. I feel safe now and I don’t have to worry while I’m walking around,” he said.
“I have to find a way to make sure the dogs don’t populate again. I think l’ll keep hosting meetings and radio shows. They’ll call in and I’ll answer questions so everyone can listen. Hopefully, that will get some sort of communication in the community.”
Ricochet / Local Journalism Initiative