Every city, town, or village that has ever hosted an Olympic event has experienced a mini-depression afterward, usually leaving taxpayers on the hook for enormous debt and clamoring for city officials’ heads.  Why did the owners of Howling Dogs think that Whistler, B.C. would be any different?  This is greed, pure and simple.  The dogs were a commodity, like sugar and soybeans, to be “stocked” in an anticipated need for a special event.  And when the tourists didn’t come, they had to “manage” inventory.

Apparently this happened in April.  You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to see the timing of this after the 2010 Winter Olympics finished at the end of February.  These dogs were created for no other purpose than man’s amusement and entertainment, trying to cash in on the hype surrounding the Olympics, and someone’s mistaken notion of a boom in tourism after the event.  Hopefully some changes occur from this sorry incident, but this story will probably go viral first.

In fact, it already is going viral and is threatening to become an international incident, leaving a stain on the name of Canada, British Columbia, the town of Whistler, and the Olympics in general.  Five years from now this could easily be the story people remember about the 2010 Winter Olympics — “Oh yeah, the Olympics in Vancouver.  Wasn’t that the one where all those sled dogs were killed afterward?”  You can hear it now.

The sad fact is that in order to provide you with the romantic image of adventure on the left, we have to have the image on the right.  Just ask the owners of Sunny and Stormy, or anyone involved in Greyhound rescues, or Brenda Hull with her horse rescue operation coping with the “throwaways” from harness racing.  In order to provide endless amusement for us all there are consequences that aren’t pretty.  It is never nice to see how the sausage is made.

But what really sticks in my craw is the absolute rapidity that the executions took place.  April!!!!  Not even 60 days after the Olympics ended!  It is bad enough that Greyhounds or Thoroughbreds are cast off after a few years of service but this is beyond the pale.  If you google “sled dogs killed” god knows how many stories you’ll get by the time you read this, but most revealing are some of the comments aimed at the poor dumb slob that followed his master’s orders.  They’ll hang that guy out to dry, saying they never told him to shoot the animals or kill them, but I hope the full weight of every government agency comes to bear on the company owners, who I believe deserve the whole of our collective revulsion.  What the hell did they think they were going to do with 300 dogs anyway?

What a sick story.  There’s nothing redeeming about this except the hope that it is horrific enough to bring changes.

Back to Jim’s Notebook