This Mountie always gets her dog

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 17/04/2021 (1877 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Cross Lake RCMP Const. Stacey Shearer doesn’t just take suspects into custody — she takes them home, feeds them, and helps them find homes.

That’s because the only crime these “suspects” are guilty of is having four legs, cold noses, and running loose in the community 536 kilometres north of Winnipeg.

The numbers are staggering — since starting her career as a Mountie in Cross Lake two and a half years ago, Shearer, 25, has rescued and fostered more than 500 dogs and puppies, many of whom required bottle-feeding.

Her home in Cross Lake has been transformed into a makeshift shelter and when residents contact the local detachment they typically ask for “the lady who looks after the dogs.”

“It’s normal,” the young Mountie chuckled in a telephone chat this week. “I’m the RCMP dog lady.”

Her devotion to rescuing strays was on display again earlier this month when a dog gave birth to nine puppies — “They were only a few days old. They still had their umbilical cords attached” — on the deck of a home in the northern community.

Shearer said the mom — a Labrador-shepherd cross she nicknamed “Goldie” — and her pups where sheltering under a covering on the deck. “The homeowner said the mom hadn’t left her puppies,” she recalled. “She was very attentive to them and stayed under the cover with them. She was a very good mom.”

The pups were placed in a cardboard box and loaded in the police truck, but it took a fair bit of clever coaxing to lure Goldie into the vehicle.

“I took a puppy and let her sniff it and then walked slowly backwards toward the truck with her sniffing the pup,” Shearer said. “Then she smelled the rest of them and jumped into the truck.”

The lifelong dog lover realized her only option was to take all 10 dogs to her home, where she lives with her own two dogs — Luca, a four-year-old Newfoundland-shepherd-lab mix; and Dierks, a two-year-old Labrador cross.

“I’ve been rescuing dogs for about two years now and the only thing I thought was to take them (the 10 dogs) home and ensure mom had food and water,” Shearer said of the April 8 rescue. “I have a room I’ve set up with a kennel and a wired pen that’s kind of like a play area for dogs.”

It would be an understatement to say this was not the first time Shearer has returned home with enough strays to form a football team. “The most I’ve ever had in my house at one time was 21 dogs,” the constable confessed, laughing. “I can tell you there was a lot of cleaning up.”

She recalled another rescue in which a dog gave birth to nine or 10 pups at the home of her boyfriend, a Norway House RCMP constable, after being found heavily pregnant outside a store in that community.

It’s not easy balancing a career as a Mountie in the North with the canine chaos of caring for an army of homeless dogs, but Shearer wouldn’t have it any other way.

“When I have a lot of puppies, they can get pretty loud,” she said. “With the older dogs, I just have to make sure they get along with my two dogs. If not, I have to schedule when they’re out in the main part of the house. It’s chaotic sometimes, especially after shift.

“Honestly, it’s just my normal routine now. I go to work, come home, clean up and give the dogs some attention. I wouldn’t change it for anything. I have a very hard time saying no to dogs. I’d rather they were safe in my house than out on the streets. I can’t imagine life without dogs.

“Sometimes, when we’re really busy, it can get a bit overwhelming, but at the end of the day I’ll take a little less sleep for the dogs to be safe.”

In going beyond the normal call of duty, Shearer has won the admiration of her colleagues. “Working in a close-knit community like Cross Lake means that we get involved in many ways that may not be considered traditional policing roles — like helping rescue dogs,” Staff Sgt. Greg Sutherland, Cross Lake RCMP detachment commander, said. “I am really grateful for Const. Shearer’s dedication to helping in any way she can.”

Another colleague who answered the detachment phone line gushed: “We’re just getting used to people calling and asking for the lady who looks after the dogs. She won’t turn anything down.”

Shearer stressed she couldn’t do what she’s doing without the support of the Manitoba Animal Alliance, a northern rescue group that provides her with supplies and arranges for the homeless dogs to be flown to Winnipeg. (You can donate online at manitobaanimalalliance.com)

“I contact them (the alliance) as soon as I get dogs or puppies, and they go to work,” she explained. “They will arrange everything. They are the backbone of all this. They send absolutely everything — food, pee pads, medication, kennels, toys, leashes, collars. It makes my life a lot easier. I cannot say enough about the rescue.”

The sheer number of animals Shearer brings home is a testament to the long-standing problem of packs of stray dogs roaming freely in northern communities, where veterinary services, especially spay and neuter clinics, are not readily available.

“I don’t think people realize how many dogs there are up here that need rescuing,” she said. “In northern communities across Manitoba, there are a ton of stray dogs. Anywhere you go up here, you’ll find stray dogs… there aren’t the resources up here that they need.”

The self-effacing Mountie quickly rejects any suggestion she is special or in any way heroic. “I am not the only (RCMP) member that does this,” she stressed. “Other members do this every day and really do care and put in the time and effort. There are a lot of RCMP members who put in a lot of time to help the dogs.”

Three days after being rescued by Shearer, Goldie and her nine pups were flown to Winnipeg with the assistance of the animal alliance. “They’re in care right now in Winnipeg. They’ll be at a foster home,” Shearer noted. “Mom will feed her pups for about eight weeks and the pups will go up for adoption and then the mom will get spayed and go up for adoption.”

She said the adoptions will be overseen in the city by Tir na Nog Animal Rescue. While the goal is to find homes for stray dogs, it’s not always easy for a dedicated Mountie to say goodbye.

“There’s some that are very hard to let go,” Shearer confessed. “Something just clicks. Goldie was special in that she was such a good mom. She was so protective of her pups. She’d cover them with her head when I reached down to move one. She was phenomenal — all she wanted from me was attention and to be petted.”

Goldie and her pups are proof not all dogs rescued in the North are aggressive. “I’m hoping that’s a train of thought that’s dying out,” she said. “Sometimes they can be food-aggressive, but they’re starving. They’re usually quite loving. They’re just loving dogs.”

In the end, for a Mountie making Manitoba’s north safer, one dog at a time, it all comes down to love. “I just love dogs,” Shearer confided. “They need someone to help them. It’s what I love to do, I guess.”

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca