CUDWORTH, Sask. – Devlin Emisch shakes his head, worrying that a stray bullet that passed through his dog could have hit him.
“It makes me feel scared because we were very close to the dog,” he said. “It could have hit us.”
His brother Darian is just glad Lucky survived with nothing more than dime and loonie-sized holes and a slight limp.
Just before lunch on Nov. 29, the teenaged boys and their two dogs were playing in a bush just steps from their house outside Cudworth, Sask. when one dog’s yelping startled them.
Read Also
Extreme rain increases as planet warms
In this issue, we are going to wrap up our look at extreme rainfall by examining the different weather patterns that tend to be associated with these rainfall events.
“I was so scared I was just burning up,” said Darian, recalling the deaths of former pets from disease and injuries.
The retriever-collie cross was bleeding from the right thigh where the bullet hit, but a tangle of golden hair and a reluctance to let the boys or their parents, Lisa and Dale, study the wound left the injury largely untreated.
A visit to the local veterinarian a few days later revealed it had been more than the dog’s usual run-in with barbed wire, porcupines or the local coyote pack.
Once the wound was cleaned and treated with antibiotics, the family could clearly see holes where the bullet had entered and exited the back leg.
The normally outdoor dog returned home to rest and recover indoors during December in the family home.
The Emisches then reported the incident to Saskatchewan Environment.
“These hunters need to be reminded that this can happen,” Lisa said.
The family was advised to post no-hunting signs around the perimeter of their 40-acre property.
For added safety, the Emisches, who do not hunt, plan to stay indoors during the next hunting season or wear bright orange toques when outside.
“If it’s something we have to do, we have to do it; we’d rather have our kids be safe,” Lisa said.
“It scares me, it could have been my kids. I won’t be going behind the house in hunting season.”
The boys plan to stay alert to the popping sounds of gunshots, a fairly common sound in the fall.
Hunters also need to be careful, Devlin said, questioning why anyone would fire a rifle without a clear shot.
He said most of the friends he talked to in school felt the hunter had been reckless and that the dog was lucky to be alive.
The family believes it was a hunter unfamiliar with the area and unaware a house existed at the treed site five kilometres from town.
Karl Breker, conservation officer with Saskatchewan Environment in Humboldt, Sask., said investigations revealed that hunters killed two white-tailed deer near the Emisch yard around that date.
However, there was no evidence to connect them or anyone else with the stray bullet.
“The bullet could have come from anywhere,” he said, noting “the dangerous range” of a rifle is three kilometres.
Other than no-hunting signs that are available for free from his department, Breker said rural residents have few options to protect themselves. They rely largely on the “goodwill and common sense of the hunter.
“The responsibility lies with the hunter. There’s no bringing that bullet back.”
Improper use of a firearm can result in charges under the criminal code and the wildlife act, Breker said.
Such incidents are the exception rather than the rule, he added, noting the only other such incident in his 23 years as a conservation officer involved a bullet hitting a farm gas tank.
Since firearm safety and hunter education programs were introduced in Saskatchewan in 1960, hunting accidents have been virtually eliminated, said Phil Haughian, legislation administrator with Saskatchewan Environment.
The course must be completed before acquiring a hunting licence or firearm.
