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An economist, a therapist and a lawyer walk into an animal shelter …
This isn’t the start of a joke. They’re here, on the west coast of Vancouver Island, to talk about culture-based, community-led solutions to a public health crisis in Indigenous communities that most Canadians don’t even know exists.
Every fall, as the air sharpens and the leaves turn, theory gives way to reality, and the phone starts ringing. Calls come from schools and community administrations: dogs are being shot to keep children safe. This fall, one school told students to go home at lunch to tie up their dogs because loose ones would be “taken care of” that afternoon. By evening, I was hearing about children who came back to class in tears. Some didn’t find their dogs in time; one administrator told me her own dog was shot when she was a child, a pain that’s never left her.
In some places, families have been told to mark their dogs with bright collars so shooters know they’re owned. Even then, the collars don’t always save them.
These shootings are not random. They’re the direct result of a century and a half of policy decisions that left Indigenous communities without the same animal-control systems that settlers built for themselves.
The numbers tell the story. Did you know that the most likely person to be bitten by a dog in Canada is a child aged 5 to 9, living in an Indigenous community? Sadly, we also know that most dog bite incidents are not reported and that hospitals and health authorities often don’t record bites by species.
And then there are the direct accounts like this from Shawn Quick, a member of the Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation: “Our remote communities haven’t had the same resources to manage abandoned or roaming animals, and that has been traumatic for those of us who’ve been left to deal with it. I know firsthand how tragic these ‘dog shoots’ can be – I used to be the person my community called in those situations. It’s wrong that so many rural and remote communities remain chronically under-resourced and have to rely on the only means available to keep people safe.”
How did we become a country that pampers its “fur babies” in some areas while leaving other children to face packs of unsocialized dogs?
These headlines – People, including children, are unsafe in the streets because of the dogs; Domestic and feral dogs and cats threaten public health; Mass culls or an organized destruction of strays is needed – were published in newspapers in the late 1800s about cities like Toronto. Indeed the “war” headline of this article was pulled from a Globe newspaper clipping in 1876.
The same sentiments can be found today in the comments of social media posts about Indigenous communities, where animal management remains a severe and disproportionate social determinant of human health. These are also the communities where the delivery of essential community health and safety services, like vet care, is left to hit-and-miss volunteerism and philanthropy. In Toronto or Vancouver, that would be unthinkable.
In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell made the world’s first long-distance telephone call, connecting Brantford to Paris, Ont., a trip that would have taken an hour or two by horse. Just before that groundbreaking call, the Canadian government made a very different kind of call: it passed the Indian Act, its first comprehensive law governing Indigenous peoples. Over the following decades, this law became a central instrument in the systemic oppression and attempted cultural genocide of Indigenous peoples.
Back then, Toronto was still more village than city, carrying a distinct odor, an “odiferous goulash” of stenches from rotting animal flesh, feces, garbage and industry. Packs of unwanted and feral dogs roamed the unpaved, tobacco-spit covered streets. The problem grew so severe that police resorted to poisoning dogs en masse.
Yesteryear’s “animal control” largely relied on community pounds, managed by appointed pound-keepers who impounded stray livestock and, sometimes, dogs. Owners reclaimed animals by paying a fee, or, if unclaimed, the animals were sold or auctioned, often providing profit to the pound-keeper. While this system helped settle disputes over trespassing livestock, it did little to manage growing dog populations or prevent bites.
In its cookie-cutter way of transplanting municipal rules from the Empire, the Canadian government wrote into the 1876 Indian Act (section 63) a provision for First Nations to appoint pound-keepers, the same ineffective role already criticized in settler communities – and, notably, without any fiscal mechanisms or enforcement support.
As the 20th century began, settler municipalities matured, establishing more formal animal control systems, including paid staff and infrastructure funded by municipal taxes. These communities had an added advantage: they were home to middle- and upper-class European-descended men and women who founded the first Societies for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCAs) and humane societies (Montreal SPCA 1869, Toronto Humane Society 1887, BC SPCA 1896). The people and animals that primarily benefited lived in urban, non-Indigenous communities.
These early animal advocates played a crucial role in shaping the Canadian “animal welfare sector” of today. However, many of them held racially prejudiced views, particularly toward Indigenous peoples, consistent with broader societal attitudes and colonial policies of their time. Their motivations were often a mix of moral and philanthropic concerns tied to public order, health, and social status.
It is important to note the dual nature of this moral impulse: the same churches whose principles guided charitable animal welfare efforts were also the institutions running the government-sponsored (as of the 1880s) residential schools, designed for the forced assimilation of Indigenous children. A singular, racially biased “civilizing” ideology shaped both spheres, reinforcing systemic neglect and oppression.
The same churches whose principles guided charitable animal welfare efforts were also the institutions running the government-sponsored residential schools.
But while municipal taxation offered new solutions for settler communities, the Indian Act barred First Nations from raising tax revenue to fund animal control staff and sheltering services. It was designed to eliminate self-sufficiency and make First Nations dependent on the Canadian government.
Canada knew what dog control required – it built it in settler towns. But it withheld it from reserves.
Day-to-day life on many reserves in the late 1800s was defined by Canada’s deliberate push from traditional, self-sufficient ways of life into precarious, sedentary existence, a move to free up land for settlers and economic gain. Free-roaming dogs, many of whom had traditional roles in transportation, hunting, and companionship, began to pose public health and safety challenges on reserves, spreading diseases like rabies, increasing fear, bites and maulings, all exacerbated by the absence of veterinary services and animal control resources.
Under the 1867 Constitution act (British North America Act), the federal government assumed exclusive authority over “Indians, and Lands reserved for the Indians” (Section 91(24)). This authority comes with a fiduciary duty: the Crown must act in the utmost good faith to protect First Nations’ interests and provide essential services, including those that safeguard community health and safety.
That responsibility has not been honoured. Canada largely has failed to invest in the animal-related infrastructure Indigenous communities need and in community infrastructures that could prevent decades of disproportionate harm. Provincial governments recognized veterinary and bylaw enforcement services as essential during the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet on reserves, these same essential services remain chronically absent.
Meanwhile, frameworks like One Health, which highlight the interconnection of human, animal and environmental health, make it clear that Canada’s inaction is not just neglect, it’s a breach of duty.
On top of structural inequities, Indigenous communities face something else: judgment.
It often sounds like this: “Yes, Indigenous communities were dealt a bad hand 150+ years ago. But that doesn’t mean it’s OK for them to let dog populations get out of control today and then shoot them.”
But until Indigenous communities have equal access, they are left to do what they can with what they have, just as Torontonians once resorted to poisoning dogs.
Until Indigenous communities have equal access, they are left to do what they can with what they have.
Judgment is nothing new. For more than a century, governments, guided by the same moral codes that fueled early animal welfare efforts, labeled Indigenous parents as “unfit.” Families were torn apart through Residential Schools and later through the ’60s Scoop. These were acts of state-sanctioned judgment disguised as moral duty.
Today, that same pattern shows up. In cities, people are judged as “bad fur-baby parents” if they don’t rush their pets to the vet for every sniffle or stubbed paw. Social media amplifies that message far beyond urban centres, setting standards that many families simply cannot meet when they live in communities without access to vets, kennels or animal services. For those already living with the pain of having been judged and punished for “not being good enough,” these new, impossible expectations are another reminder that the system was never designed for them.
Back in that small shelter, surrounded by kennels and stacks of donated blankets, the conversation kept circling back to one question: why are Indigenous communities still left out of the system Canada built for everyone else? When I met with British Columbia’s Ministry of Agriculture, which oversees animal management, I was told the ministry consults only one outside voice on domesticated animal-related funding decisions: the CEO of the BC SPCA.
Why does one urban-based organization, rooted in colonial history, with a $50+ million annual budget and more than $100 million in the bank, solely direct the province’s dog and cat funding, while, according to Increased ACCESS’s Treasurer, Indigenous SPCA has an annual budget of just $50,000 (1 per cent of BC SPCA’s) that all comes from small donations? Over the past 10 years, the government of British Columbia has provided the BC SPCA approximately $12 million to replace animal shelters in urban areas, and $0 to rural and remote communities where children are being bitten at alarming rates and rabies is a threat.
This decision was made without consulting Indigenous communities, contradicting Canada’s commitments under the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), which requires governments to involve Indigenous peoples in decisions that affect their health, safety and well-being.
If reconciliation means anything, it requires governments to stop outsourcing responsibility to colonial-era institutions and start resourcing Indigenous-led models that can decolonize the sector.
Remember the economist, therapist and lawyer who walked into the shelter? Their presence isn’t random. Economics, law and health sit at the heart of this 150-year story – the same forces that created today’s inequities are the ones now needed to dismantle them, led by Indigenous leadership.
This team is conducting a research project led by partner Nations and supported by the University of Winnipeg. The project will engage community members of all ages, Knowledge Keepers and Cultural Advisors to document and discuss experiences, insights and solutions. It also will include a cost-benefit analysis of community-led, culture-based animal services and the development of cutting-edge financing models to make them possible.
Increased ACCESS also has been engaging governments directly. B.C. MLA and Health Minister Josie Osborne has acknowledged the inequity in a letter supporting the research project. Osborne has heard the recommendation: transfer oversight of dogs and cats from the Ministry of Agriculture to the Ministry of Health. Doing so would recognize what communities already know, that companion animal management is a core part of public health, not an agricultural matter.
Mobile, non-profit veterinary care can be delivered efficiently to remote communities
On the ground, prototypes already are proving what works. Mission Pawsible Vet Clinic in B.C. is showing how mobile, non-profit veterinary care can be delivered efficiently to remote communities. CARE Network’s Victory Vetmobiles project is designing affordable, prefabricated animal service hubs: flat-packed buildings that can be shipped, assembled and used as kennels, exam/surgery spaces and supply depots. These models dismantle the old excuse that rural and remote realities make having sustainable animal services impossible. They prove it can be done, if there is a will to invest in change.
In January 2025, with the support of the community’s leadership and Increased ACCESS, Mission Pawsible brought one of its vetmobiles to Wuikinuxv territory, a remote community tucked into Rivers Inlet on British Columbia’s central coast. To reach it, the mobile clinic had to be barged in, and the veterinary crew – along with me -–flew over. It was a stunning flight, but also a reminder of how far this place is from the nearest veterinary clinic.
Over five days, the team performed spay-and-neuter surgeries on nearly 90 per cent of the community’s dogs – a milestone that would have been nearly impossible without the clinic coming to them. The closest vet clinic is in Port Hardy, reachable only by plane or boat, and the cost of that trip alone can be prohibitive. Add to that the challenge of finding vet appointments, hotel stays and the reality that most dogs here have never left the community – some have never worn a collar, walked on a leash or spent a night indoors – and the idea of taking them “to town” for surgery becomes unthinkable.
Wuikinuxv’s leadership had already set the stage for the surgery team’s success by introducing a community animal bylaw requiring dogs to be fixed. And now they’re taking the next step: commissioning a permanent, community-owned “doghouse” – a multi-purpose, prefabricated animal-care building shipped north for reassembly. Once built, it will provide space for future Mission Pawsible surgical clinics and kennels for community use – a durable, locally driven solution born from Wuikinuxv’s own priorities.
The veterinary sector also carries a critical role. Largely private, urban and increasingly corporatized, it remains inaccessible to many Indigenous communities. Yet small policy shifts could change that. Advocating for student loan forgiveness programs for veterinarians and registered veterinary technicians, akin to programs in human health, could seed a new generation willing to serve rural and remote communities. A non-profit veterinary sector, supported and scaled across Canada, would ensure that animal health, and by extension, community health, is treated as essential, not optional.
Taken together, these efforts show that solutions are not hypothetical. They are being built right now, community by community, kilometre by kilometre. What remains is for Canada and the provinces to stop hoarding resources in yesteryear institutions and start investing in Indigenous-led, community-based models that address the inequities head-on.
On Nov. 1, Increased ACCESS launched the first Red Collar Day, a day to remember, not to blame. It honoured the dogs who were shot and the families who grieve them while naming the system that created the conditions for those losses.
“This is a policy problem that governments can fix, and have a fiduciary duty to fix,” says Quick. “Red Collar Day is a call to action for everyone.”
Across the country, people joined in solidarity, some wearing red, others sharing and posting on social media. In many homes, dogs and cats wore red, too. Each red collar told the same story: that care must be available in every community; it’s not optional.
It’s a symbol of shared responsibility, a quiet act of remembrance between species, and a reminder that compassion, health, and safety should never depend on your postal code.
If the 1876 Globe headline declared a war against the dogs, today’s challenge is not about fighting animals, it’s about ending inequality. When a nation spends millions pampering “fur-babies” while Indigenous families are denied even the most basic animal services, the imbalance is glaring.
The economist, therapist, and lawyer who walked into that shelter are still at the table, working with Indigenous leaders to expose inequities and build solutions. But reconciliation cannot remain just a word in Ottawa, Victoria or other capitals. It must mean shifting resources, listening to Indigenous voices, and dismantling sector Goliaths so decolonizing models can thrive.
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Previously Published on healthydebate.ca with Creative Commons License
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The post ‘The War Against Dogs Continues’: How 150 Years of Policy Denied Animal Control to Indigenous Communities appeared first on The Good Men Project.