A whistler perspective on the sled dogs

[snowvalley]

Maxed Out – Between the mob and the massacre

I can’t decide which slice of humanity is more loathsome: the dude who killed the dogs – and yes, even though everybody knows his name, I’ll decline to use it – or the Facebook vigilantes, witch hunters and lynchmobbers who have spewed their particular brand of venomous bile over his act.

On second thought, I know. There’s nothing more loathsome about humans than their inclination to mob up in times of stress or boredom. Mobs don’t have brains; they don’t need them because mobs don’t think. Mobs don’t have humanity; they replace that commodity with anger and ill-aimed vengeance. Mobs don’t reason; anger and frustration is reason enough. Mobs don’t have a conscience; that’s left to individuals once they’ve shaken themselves away from the hold of the mob and realize what they’ve done.

What do we know so far? Buddy claims to have killed 70 sled dogs; the upstream owners of the sled dog operation claim it was more like 100. He claims to have killed them in a way everybody, including him, agrees is inhumane. He claims he was "ordered" to do it. The partial owners of the company at the time and full owners now claim they knew the killings were going to take place but they "thought" he’d kill them in a humane way. The act devastated Buddy’s humanity and left him a shell of a man. He filed for compensation. WorkSafe BC denied compensation. He appealed, hiring a lawyer somewhere along the way. WorkSafe BC granted compensation on appeal. A Vancouver radio station got hold of the ruling. The shit hit the fan.

Everything else is speculation.

And oh, what speculation. It’s the Olympics’ fault. It’s Joey Houssian’s fault. It’s the SPCA’s fault. It’s the entire dogsled industry’s fault. It’s Whistler’s fault. Hell, for all I know, it’s my fault.

The RCMP IS investigating. The SPCA is "investigating."

Let us pause for a moment and consider the role the SPCA has played in whipping up the mob. The SPCA is investigating to determine whether there was cruelty involved in the killings. They have not spoken with Buddy. The actual knowledge they have of the incident is contained in WorkSafe BC’s findings and interviews they’ve conducted with other parties, the latter of which being known in legal parlance as hearsay. Yet Marcie Moriarity, general manager for cruelty investigations, her face contorted before the cameras, said, "The sheer terror and agony these dogs must have suffered is horrifying. This is the most disturbing case I have seen in my six years in cruelty investigations." Yeah, baby. You bring the gasoline; I’ll bring the matches. Whatever happened to, "It wouldn’t be appropriate for me to comment on an ongoing investigation"?

As distasteful as it seems – and believe me, it seems plenty distasteful to me – it isn’t illegal to kill your dog in Canada as long as the dog doesn’t suffer. Sorry, Zippy. "You can kill your animal for whatever reason you want, because animals are considered chattel, provided that the method that you choose doesn’t cause pain and suffering to the animal," according to James Lawson, animal health officer with the B.C. SPCA.

Which raises an interesting moral and ethical question. If Buddy, as is claimed in the WorkSafe BC ruling, enlisted the aid of a veterinarian to cull the dogs humanely and was turned down because the vet refused to humanely euthanize healthy dogs, what is the moral culpability of the vet? If the vet had agreed to do the job, there may well be outrage but there wouldn’t be a crime.

If, say, a doctor refuses, on moral grounds, to perform a legal medical procedure, abortion for example, and a woman, distraught over an unwanted pregnancy, seeks the assistance of a back-alley abortionist and loses her life in the procedure, the abortionist is liable for homicide. What’s the doctor liable for? His/her moral stand may not be legal proximate cause but it undeniably helped the cart roll downhill.

Buddy didn’t die. But he’s hardly alive. We’ll probably never know – and I’m pretty sure he’ll never really know – why he decided to do what he did in the way he did it and virtually all of us will feel safe, secure and, yes, smug thinking we’d never do such an indescribably despicable thing. Pre-World War II Germans undoubtedly felt the same security before they participated or kept silent about the Holocaust. Graduate students at Yale in the early 1960s felt the same way before Stanley Milgram proved everyone has a little Nazi in them with his shocking experiment.

I’m outraged he killed any dogs in the manner he described. I’m numbed by the numbers. But I’m particularly outraged at the Facebook vigilantes who want him to turn the gun on himself. This man has a family. He has a wife – whom some of the mob has also outed, posting her name, address, phone number and business – and children. Hey, why not go after them? His family is shattered and scared, scared to answer the phone, scared to leave him alone, scared they’ll never again be able to rejoin what they not so long ago considered a relatively normal, happy life.

Ironically, it would suit the vigilantes just fine if they never did. Their vitriol rings the sickeningly familiar mob chants of "Run them out of town. Shame their friends. Boycott everyone who’s ever had anything to do with them." They cry with humanity for the dead dogs but scream with bloodlust for the head of the man responsible… or Joey’s head or, hell, somebody’s head. Anybody’s. A mob isn’t particularly particular when it comes to revenge.

So whaddya say, people. Let’s chill a little. Let’s regain our humanity, reset our moral compass, deal with the incredible public relations mess we find ourselves in and comport ourselves in a way we can all be proud of when the dust finally settles and justice – whatever that is – is done. Let’s try really hard to not lynch anyone, not drive anyone to suicide, not show the world what a bunch of yabos we are; let’s divine our inner humanity.

Honour the memory of the dogs. Bring your dog, bring your candles, bring your hopes for the future and join together in the Village, say, next Friday evening. Or pick some other date. Right now, the world’s press is having a field day showing the ugly side of Whistler. Let’s show them the decent side, the caring side, the side that’ll welcome them with open arms, show them a good time and hope they come back and bring their friends.

No one wants to visit our ugly side. Let’s just keep that to ourselves.

By G. D. Maxwell

http://www.piquenewsmagazine.com/pique/ … d+out+1805

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