Dozens of dogs are now with loving families or are up for adoption at animal shelters, just weeks after a Quebec dog sledding operation was exposed on CTV’s W5.
Expédition (XP) Mi-Loup in Île-d’Orléans, Quebec is shuttering its doors after W5’s in-depth dog sled industry exposé showed footage of what appeared to be a homemade, illegal gas chamber apparently used to kill dogs on the site, and a freezer full of puppy and adult dog corpses.
Animal Justice applauds the animal advocates who coordinated the investigation into the facility and all those now working to find homes for the dogs.
The dog sledding industry is unregulated in most of Canada, and it’s common for sled dogs to be kept in poor conditions that are explicitly hidden from tourists and visitors. When dogs aren’t pulling sleds, many of them spend the vast majority of their lives tied to shoddy barrels and crates that barely shelter them from the elements. Dogs are highly social pack animals, but in the dog sledding industry, dogs are denied the ability to play and socialize. Sled dogs are forced to eat, sleep and defecate all in the same small space, and endure extreme boredom, and both mental and physical suffering.
Much of the public is unaware of the horrific cruelty in Canada’s dog sledding industry, but W5’s new exposé, the Sled Dogs documentary, and high-profile news coverage of suffering dogs are helping push these issues into the mainstream.
Animal Justice has been advocating for stronger laws to protect sled dogs for years. Recently, as a part of Ontario’s review of the standards of care for outdoor dogs, we called on the province to enact a ban on the use of sled dogs at commercial operations. We also rallied supporters to express their support for more robust protection of dogs in the province, including an end to continuous tethering, stronger outdoor shelter requirements, and substantial weather protection requirements.
Please add your support by telling Ontario Premier Doug Ford and Solicitor General Sylvia Jones that dogs deserve better than a life of misery on the end of a chain!
Banner image: Jenny McQueen
