In a letter to La Presse, Nathalie Potvin described the horrific incident [translated from French below].
“I was walking my dog on the paved path through a beautiful golf course,” she wrote. “There was no one around, so I released my dog and he sniffed the bushes about five feet from me.”
What happened next is straight from the nightmares of many dog owners. Potvin said she heard a bloodcurdling scream: her dog was caught in the grasps of a Conibear trap.
Passersby were able to assist Potvin – one called police and two young men helped pry the trap off of her dog’s throat before he suffocated from the pressure of the trap. He was treated at a local veterinarian and is now home, safe, but scarred.
In her letter, Potvin admits that her dog was off-leash and in contravention of local laws. But she also recognized that many, many dog owners allow their dogs off-leash in the area, and more importantly, that it was not the depths of a forest: the paved pathway was in town. The trap was baited with chicken and set approximately 15 feet from the popular walking path. There were no warning signs or indications that trapping was occurring in the area.
It’s unclear from the letter whether or not the trap was set on private or public land. But the responsibility should not lay with every day residents – a trapper put this device in a location where locals commonly walk with children and pets.
There is no need for this kind of dangerous activity at all, let alone in an urban environment filled with families. Talk to your municipal officials and find out what their policy is on the use of traps – and let us know if The Fur-Bearers can help make your community safe for everyone.
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