'Dogs will bark': Yukon kennel owner stands firm despite neighbours' complaints
'I'm not breaking any laws,' says Shelley Cuthbert, whose rural kennel has the neighbours fed up
If fences make good neighbours, Shelley Cuthbert's ample fencing around her Tagish dog kennel has not exactly done its job.
Cuthbert is vowing to stand by her animals, as her neighbours sue to shut the kennel down and send the dozens of resident dogs packing.
"The dogs are my life, and I am not going to give up on these dogs," said Cuthbert, whose Any Domesticated Animal Rescue and Boarding Kennels is now home to about 80 animals.
"I will do what it takes to keep these dogs. And this is their home, and I plan on staying."
A group of Cuthbert's closest neighbours — on four separate properties — are suing because they say the steady din of barking, howling dogs, and the smell of feces, is disturbing their peace. They want an injunction preventing her from keeping any animals on the property.
It's their only apparent legal recourse, since there are no zoning laws or community plans in Tagish that they could appeal to.
"I'm not breaking any laws," Cuthbert says.
'No idea' why neighbours upset
There are two signs on the wooden gate that encloses Cuthbert's two-hectare property in the rural Tagish Estates subdivision — one says "Welcome", the other more highly visible one cautions, "GUARD DOG ON DUTY."
Entering the gate, it's hard to tell if there is in fact a single "guard dog". A half dozen or so run to greet and jump at visitors while dozens more in large fenced pens launch into a chorus of excited barking.
"Dogs will bark when there's people that come to the gate. Dogs will bark when they want to be pestered at the side. There's no reason for it. Dogs get excited if there's wildlife running around," Cuthbert said.
A few dogs with behaviour problems or demonstrated aggression are segregated in cages, but most of the animals run freely together in large pens. There are regular scuffles (not "fights", Cuthbert insists) and what look like barking matches through fences.
"The dogs have a sport. Their sport is, 'let me get the other dogs going,'" she says.
Still, Cuthbert claims she has "no idea" why her neighbours are bothered.
"You'd have to ask them. Because they don't talk to me.
"It's not continuous barking — they do quiet down. And they come in every night. So I'm not sure what else to say about the barking."
Cuthbert opened her facility in 2012, the same year a court order forced her out as president of the Whitehorse Humane Society. She says since then, she's adopted out about 1,200 dogs.
To her, it's obvious that she's providing a needed service in Yukon.
"In the first year, I think I had about 40 [dogs], and it just kept growing from there," she said. "Lots of people were bringing dogs out here because it's cage-free."
She figures she spends about $1,500 per month on dog food alone. There are also veterinary bills to pay, and other random expenses, essentially leaving her "in the poorhouse."
'An incredible detriment'
Cuthbert's neighbours are not talking to reporters and instead refer questions to their Whitehorse lawyer, Graham Lang. He says the neighbours have been disturbed by the kennel since it first opened, and Cuthbert had just a couple of dozen dogs.
Lang says it's a stretch for Cuthbert to pretend there's no problem.
"I don't think anybody could have 80 dogs located on a property, running free, and the noise level that obviously comes along with that, and not think that your residential neighbours are going to have a problem," he said.
One neighbour runs a cabin rental business, and Lang says it's been suffering since Cuthbert arrived.
"People, turns out, don't want to rent cabins when there's dogs howling all night."
Cuthbert has not yet filed a statement of defence. Last week, she launched an online fundraising campaign to raise $5,000 to hire an attorney who is "an animal activist out of Vancouver," the page says.
The site refers to the plaintiffs as "a bunch of people who have caused alot of problems for everyone and the dogs."
Plans for the future
Every night, Cuthbert says, all but ten of her 80 or so dogs are brought into her house.
"There's 30 crates in there, the rest lay around. They all know their spots.
"These are 'home dogs', that need to go into homes, eventually ... Everybody here needs to learn to live in a house. And that's what it's about."
She says she's not overly worried about the lawsuit, and even has plans to keep developing the kennel, clearing out some trees and adding some enclosed shelters, for problem dogs.
To Cuthbert, "the primary focus of this place is, 'dogs need to be dogs.' And dogs do bark, she says.
"They're dogs. You can't ever change that."