Canadian Hunter Shot Therapy Dog For Autistic Children, Thinking It A Wolf

A Canadian woman has written a Facebook post about witnessing her therapy dog being shot dead by a hunter, who mistook it for a wolf.

In her post Tuesday, Vale Calderoni, owner of a dog rehabilitation centre in Squamish, British Columbia, said her dog Kaoru, a four-year-old Tamaskan, was shot while she was walking a pack of canines in the woods on Monday.

Calderoni had trained Kaoru to be a therapy dog for autistic children with special needs.

"Today my dog, my partner, was killed at point blank," she wrote in the post on Facebook.

"Kaoru has worked with many kids and people, from PSD to regular children, elders and adults. I loved my dog so much and watching her give herself so entirely to anyone that let her has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life."

Calderoni said the incident happened when she and another handler were at the end of a hike with 10 dogs near Whistler. She said she suddenly heard a gunshot and crouched instinctively.

"It was so loud, my instinct made me crouch down, then I looked, and I saw 10 feet in front of me my dog shot. She screamed, and looked at her wound with disbelief and then looked at me with the absolute feeling of betrayal. I ran towards her as she stumbled down the road where she collapsed. I tried to save her, I held her, I just knew it was not good. I did not want her to suffer, and I told her "just go, just let go baby girl". She died. I never cried so hard in my life. I was faint; I could not breathe," she wrote on the Facebook post.

Calderoni also wrote that the hunter shot Kaoru because "he thought she was a wolf surrounded by seven other dogs and 10 feet away from my teammate and me."

She highlighted the fact that it could have been anyone at the spot where the dog was shot.

"We could have died. I hike in that location with kids all the time, could you imagine if a child had to experience that or worse if he had hit a child? I can't believe that Kaoru is gone, that someone could do that. I am in pain and I want to use this intense pain to help stop this, we can take a stand, we can change things," she wrote.

Since she lost Kaoru, Calderoni has raised almost 9,000 Canadian dollars ($7335) to campaign against people hunting in the forest near the town of Squamish and Whistler, and also to end wolf-hunting, BBC reported.

Squamish Royal Canadian Mounted Police confirmed to the Squamish Chief, a local newspaper, that there was a police file on the incident. A spokesperson told the newspaper the B.C. Conservation Officer Service was investigating the matter.

Conservation officer Kent Popjes said the investigation was still in the beginning stage, but everyone was cooperating with the officials.

He also informed that another incident of a similar nature took place three years ago in the region when a black Labrador from Whistler was shot accidentally by a hunter.

Popjes also said that hunters should fully identify their targets before firing.