Search KelownaNow
A standard Tuesday hike turned tragic on Tuesday.
Kaoru, a therapy dog from Canine Valley dog rescue and rehabilitation centre in Squamish, was shot and killed by a hunter “at point blank.”
According to Valley Calderoni, Tuesday was like any other day and it was a great hike with Kaoru and nine other dogs.
“As we were finishing the hike, we were putting the leashes back on the dogs,” explained Calderoni in a Facebook post. “I already had two dogs on the leash when I heard the bang, it was so loud, my instinct made me crouch down.”
Unsure of what produced the bang, Calderoni looked around and discovered the horrific scene.
“I saw, 10 feet in front of me, my dog shot,” Calderoni said. “She screamed, and looked at her wound with disbelief and then looked at me with the absolute feeling of betrayal.”
Calderoni says she ran towards Kaoru as the dog stumbled and collapsed onto the road.
She tried to save her, but as Calderoni held the fallen dog she knew the outlook wasn’t good and didn’t want her partner to suffer.
“Just go, just let go baby girl,” she told the dog, who took her last breaths.
“I never cried so hard in my life,” Calderoni wrote on her Facebook post. “The amount of pain I feel should never be experienced by anyone, ever, for any reason.”
The hunter said that he thought Kaoru was a wolf and was posing a threat to Calderoni and the other nine dogs, but that was little consolation to a heartbroken Calderoni.
“A hunter, a trophy hunter, killed my dog,” she said. “What kind of human can look in a scope at such a beautiful creature and murder it?”
Following the incident, Calderoni has set up a GoFundMe in Kaoru’s memory with a number of goals in mind.
Those goals include training a new leading service dog to replace Kaoru, who helped countless children, adults and dogs rehabilitate from various things.
As part of the therapy dog’s legacy, she also wants to establish Kaoru’s Trail near the site of Canine Valley’s future centre.
Furthermore, Calderoni is hoping to extend the current No Hunting and No Shoot Zone to cover Squamish and Whistler, as well as ban the hunting and killing of wolves in B.C.
You can support her efforts through the GoFundMe page by clicking this link.
If you get value from KelownaNow and believe local independent media is important to our community we ask that you please consider subscribing to our daily newsletter.
If you appreciate what we do, we ask that you consider supporting our local independent news platform.