Sled dog outrage stretches beyond mere cruelty
February 18, 2026 6:37 PM
Rant of the week
If you ask me, the complete unadulterated fury expressed by Canadians following the revelation of the Whistler sled dog killing is completely understandable.
The “cull” of between 70 and 100 dogs after the Olympic closing ceremonies last year came to light only after a Worker’s Compensation report confirming post-traumatic stress for the employee in question was leaked.
Despite claims to the contrary from the employee, Joey Houssian, owner of the company in question (Outdoor Adventures), claims to have known nothing about the numbers of dogs killed or the manner in which it was done.
Well of course he does.
What initially bothered me about this case was obviously the mindblowing animal cruelty occurring under the auspices of a fun nationalistic time for all.
But now that an inquiry is underway (and someone will inevitably have to accept reprimands and infamy), my concern shifts more towards the cover-up.
Although asking “What did these innocent dogs do to deserve that?” is a tempting question, it’s not in fact the productive one. What’s done is done, the SPCA is investigating, and nothing can bring them back.
The real question here is how it could have been hidden from public knowledge for a whole year despite all eyes being on Vancouver. The story that Houssian would have me buy is that one man made a misguided decision to put down all of these dogs, it was his own decision, and nobody else noticed anything amiss.
Really? Your business is to cart people around on sled adventures in B.C.’s winter wonderland and you didn’t notice 100 dogs going missing? One man took it upon himself to slaughter and bury a substantial amount of the company and the owner was shocked to find out in an email a year later? Canadians are just not stupid enough to swallow that.
Villifying Houssian still doesn’t quite satisfy me though. Outdoor Adventures must have had many employees running the circus that was Whistler tourism last February. 70 to 100 is a lot of dogs. They would have been regularly fed, doctored, and exercised outside. And no one noticed their disappearance?
I was bothered by the cruelty. But as retribution for that seems imminent, I’m now unsettled at the passiveness and ignorance exhibited by all of the people who must have noticed something amiss, yet did nothing.
The caretakers of these animals, owner of the company, and (arguably) vets and local inhabitants just did not have the sense to notice the obliteration of a substantial population of animals.
The only reason that this issue is being dealt with now is the media fell ass backward into a sob story. If this is the route we are always to take in evaluating businesses, then we deserve to be overwhelmed by the consequences of our own short-sightedness.
The people of Whistler should have been relying on their own powers of observation rather than the national media (or perhaps one claims evaluator with a conscience) to tell them what was going on in their own city. Justice and responsibility can wait a long while if they’re continually foisted on to someone else.
