A man whose dog was hit by a vehicle and suffered a broken hip and facial injuries in a pre-Christmas collision on the McLeod Lake Reserve 140 kilometres north of Prince George, is claiming someone dragged the injured dog from the accident scene on a sled and kept it hidden in a residence for six days.
Allen Cummings was reunited with his two-year-old German shepherd Lilly on Dec. 26 after spending most of the previous week searching for her. He was in Prince George acting on a tip the dog had been brought to the city when he received a call to say Lilly had been found at the McLeod Lake Indian Band office.
“She suffered for six days,” said Cummings.
As soon as Cummings and his girlfriend Kandy Stout saw Lilly, they knew she needed medical help and drove to Prince George to find a veterinarian. The vet determined the broken hip and shredded tongue and lips that had to be surgically repaired were injuries suffered four or five days earlier. While Lilly is expected to make a full recovery, she will need additional surgery to fix her shattered hip bone.
“We know our dog was hit, but instead of people doing the right thing, probably because they were drunk or stoned, or both, they wouldn’t step up,” said Cummings.
“If you hit a dog in that community (of about 100 people) you know whose dog that is. They could have come and got us. They could have transported her, which is why that sled was used. They couldn’t lift her because she had a broken hip and would have been in extreme agony. Or they could have just left her and we could have found her instead of holding her captive.”
On Dec.20, the day of Lilly’s disappearance, Cummings spotted a car with two people in it parked at the baseball diamond and it briefly followed him at slow speed before returning to the ballpark. He later saw the same car parked outside a house in the village and that’s when he noticed the sled.
“On December 20 at 9:52 p.m. I saw the two individuals in the car, the same individuals that would claim six days later, that they found our dog, miraculously, in front of the band office,” said Cummings. “Who’s out at 9:30 at night pulling a little sled which looks like it could transport a dog, which we believe is exactly what happened.
“Why would somebody be pulling a sled, especially at that time of night, it was hugely suspicious so I took the licence plate number, and I called that into the RCMP 10 minutes later. They ran the plates but they said it wasn’t enough to come and take a look.”
The dog went missing at about 5 a.m. that day and Cummings put on snowshoes and walked the perimeter of the community but found nothing. He also went to Mackenzie, 55 km away, to try to find Lilly.
“We could not find a trace of her in McLeod Lake,” he said. “We even had a dog tracker come in.
“She was held captive in the community, without a doubt, and the vet report confirms that.”
Cummings received a tip that his dog had been stolen by drug users who intended to sell her and had brought her to Prince George, where she was apparently being held at residence in the VLA neighbourhood and he spent three days walking the streets and alleys looking for Lilly. He put up posters in the area and people who saw his social media posts offered to help look for Lilly at Ginter’s Field, where she was often brought for walks with his other dogs, but the searches proved fruitless.
He saw a post on the Prince George And Area Pet Network site on Facebook which showed a German shepherd that matched Lilly’s description had been seen in the area and it identified a house where that dog had been seen. Cummings went to the Prince George RCMP detachment with the address and an officer visited that residence, but it turned out Lilly was not there.
On Dec. 26 at 1:15 a.m., Stout received a call from someone in McLeod Lake to say Lilly had been found by the community woodpile. The caller said all her teeth had been smashed and there was a lot of blood from the broken teeth, but when they got to her there was no blood and all her teeth were intact.
“It was heartbreaking, she could barely lap up water with her tongue and she was traumatized,” said Cummings. “It was the hardest thing to take. On one hand you’re so happy she’s alive but on the other hand you’re angry that this dog has suffered for so long. She was held captive for five days with those wounds, with her tongue in shreds.
“Since that time, people won’t talk, they won’t answer doors, it’s like a conspiracy of silence.”
Cummings, 55, works in McLeod Lake as an Indigenous child welfare consultant, a job he’s held for nearly 23 years since graduating from Simon Fraser University with a criminology degree.
He lives on the reserve and says there should be security cameras installed at the band office and at strategic locations around the village. He says RCMP officers from the Mackenzie detachment that serves the community have made that request several times to McLeod Lake Indian Band chief Harley Chingee and the band administrators, but to no avail.
This is third time in less than a year Cummings and Stout have been victimized by criminal activity at the reserve. In May, they were the target of an early-morning home invasion and the culprit remained at the scene until police arrived about an hour later. Three months later, someone threatened to shoot one of their dogs after a smaller dog in the village was attacked. Cummings said both perpetrators face pending court dates.
“We want justice for our dog, it’s not a safe community and there’s not one camera,” said Cummings.
“If we had one camera at the band office we would have known who was active that night and we would have a record who was out in those time periods. Every law-abiding citizen would know a camera deters crime or finds crime, so there’s no excuse.”
