Stray dog injures child on Sioux Valley Dakota Nation

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This article was published 01/12/2023 (885 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The stray dog problem on Sioux Valley Dakota Nation has become more serious after a dog came onto the grounds of the elementary school and attacked a student at recess on Wednesday morning.

The resulting injuries required medical attention, and as a result, the school will no longer have outdoor recess until the stray dog issue on the reserve, located 50 kilometres northwest of Brandon, is resolved.

Stray dogs coming onto the playground isn’t a new problem for the school, an email sent out from the Sioux Valley Education Authority on Wednesday afternoon said.

A public announcement was previously posted online that requested dog owners to leash their animals in order to keep them away from school property during the day.

“This message has gone unheeded, as five to six dogs still frequent the school grounds on a daily basis,” the email, written by Sioux Valley Elementary School principal Bruce Lyons, said. “In consideration of the fact that there has now been a dog attack on our school playground, it is no longer safe for our children to go outside during the day.”

Since students won’t have the opportunity to go outside and play during the school day, leading to more learning time in the classroom, they are now being dismissed earlier, at 3 p.m. The new schedule will continue until student safety can be ensured, Lyons said in the email.

The Sioux Valley Education Authority is working to repair, replace and enhance the fence around the perimeter of the school to help keep stray dogs off of the playground. The authority is also repeating their request that dog owners leash their dogs or keep them in a secure enclosure during the day so that they cannot enter the schoolground. Animal control personnel will be visiting the community to apprehend dogs that frequent the schoolyard soon, the email said.

Vince Tacan, chief of Sioux Valley, said the issue of stray dogs has been an ongoing problem on the reserve.

“In the past, it hasn’t been a priority issue, but it is concerning,” he said.

Although no formal plan was in place at the time of writing, Tacan said more education needs to take place to ensure the problem is dealt with.

“We need to have folks that are a little more responsible with their pets, who spay and neuter their pets,” Tacan told the Sun.

There are often financial barriers that keep people from spaying and neutering their animals, he added.

“It’s not funded in the community. We don’t have a tax base from which we can hire animal control officers, so we’ve got to work with what we have.”

There are also more pressing issues facing the community, including the problem of crystal meth, Tacan said. As the Sun previously reported, the drug issues facing the community were discussed at a meeting on Monday night.

“For priority areas, right now we have meth in the community, we’ve got drugs in the community, we have housing issues, we have all these other things that are taking precedence,” he said.

Tacan said he hopes council will be able to find resources for bringing in trained animal control professionals on a temporary basis, and to possibly construct kennels throughout the community.

“There’s going to be a little bit of improvising and doing stuff that we’ve never done before to address this issue,” he said. “Hopefully, we can get some staff to agree to put their energy towards this.”

Animal rescue volunteer Sherill Creasy, who runs A Tail to Tell front-line rescue, a non-profit organization based out of Ste. Rose du Lac and Carberry, says she’s worked with dog owners on Sioux Valley before.

The biggest factor behind the stray dog issue in any community is irresponsible dog owners, Creasy said. She is also worried about the tendency of local governments to not focus enough resources on dealing with animal welfare issues.

“It seems like all dog matters get pushed aside … and they just don’t deal with it because they’ve got bigger fish to fry,” she said. “They don’t see it as being a huge problem until somebody gets hurt, like what just happened.”

Creasy said it is also common for people to place the blame on the dogs themselves as opposed to their owners in situations like the one that just happened on Sioux Valley.

“Nobody is being accountable for the care of their dogs,” she said. “There are some good pet owners out there, and on other reservations as well, but they keep their dogs inside, because they know what’s wandering around out there, and that other people just don’t (care).”

In the future, Creasy hopes that chief and council of Sioux Valley will find a way to ensure that animals on reserve get spayed and neutered and have access to adequate food, water and shelter.

“I would love to be a presenter, to speak on my experience to these dog owners, and how important it is,” she said.

Creasy’s non-profit also offers an owner assist program to residents of Sioux Valley and other communities. Under the program, pet owners pay $120 toward having their animals spayed or neutered and brought up to date with their vaccines.

During a phone call with the Sun, Lyons declined to comment on the injured child’s condition or anything else regarding the stray dog attack.

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