Dog attacked by wolf in Albert Beach

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This article was published 22/11/2015 (3684 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Gary Wingate’s knee-high dog is a life-saver.

Coco, a three-year-old female Labrador-Dachshund cross, heard a commotion outside her Albert Beach home in the middle of the night last week and her barking almost certainly saved the life of her canine housemate, Norman.

The older Labrador-German Shepherd cross usually sleeps in his doghouse on the front porch in a gated yard. But when Wingate’s wife, Susan, got up to see what was going on, she saw a large grey wolf walking up the driveway, and Norman wasn’t in his doghouse.

She woke up her husband, who quickly jumped into his truck and drove toward the noise.

“They moved the fight into the bush. I could hear this growling, some yelping and scrapping. I put my headlights on. Then a white wolf came jumping past into the bush where the fight was going on. I yelled out my dog’s name a few times and 30 seconds later, he limped out,” Wingate said.

Norman escaped with some puncture wounds on his throat, on the back of his neck and on his back. He’s on antibiotics and painkillers and had to have the areas around his wounds shaved to minimize the chances of infection.

“He survived but he’s pretty traumatized. He’s a fairly large dog but he’s no match for one wolf, let alone two. He goes outside, but he stays pretty close to home. He sleeps inside at night now,” he said.

Wingate said the wolf problem on the east side of Lake Winnipeg, including the communities of Grand Beach, Victoria Beach, Albert Beach, Hillside Beach and Traverse Bay, has yet to be solved, despite officials hiring a trapper before Thanksgiving.

Several wolves have been trapped and killed, but the night air is often filled with the howls of what sound like dozens more.

“One of my neighbours said he saw a pack of 10 heading from Victoria Beach to Elk Island. Ten is a big pack. I wouldn’t want to run into that,” said one resident.

Wingate said his son, Ian, an avid hunter, is considering trying to attract some wolves with deer meat so he can shoot them.

“I’ve never seen it this bad for wolves. My neighbour saw a white wolf walking down the street in the middle of the day. I’ve never seen a wolf attack a human, but I don’t want to be the first, either,” he said.

The Free Press reported in September four attacks on dogs in cottage country may have been carried out by a coywolf or coywolves, a hybrid coyote-wolf species.

The province said without proper DNA analysis of a trapped animal to determine if there is a hybrid coyote-wolf population in the East Beaches area, the attacks are being blamed on wolves asserting their dominance and looking for an easy kill.

In late September, there were four confirmed attacks on dogs in the Victoria Beach and Hillside Beach areas on the east side of Lake Winnipeg over a one-month period.

Three dogs were killed — at least two were ripped to pieces, according to residents — and a fourth was severely injured. Several more dogs have died in wolf attacks since then, said local residents who didn’t want to be named.

There have been no documented cases of coywolves in Manitoba — the hybridization between coyotes and wolves is rare. However, a number of coywolf attacks on pets have been reported in Toronto over the past few years. It’s also been reported increased hunting and trapping pressure on wolves has led to mating between wolves and coyotes.

geoff.kirbyson@freepress.mb.ca

— with Free Press files