Threatening note shocks North Vancouver trail users
Trail users in North Vancouver say they're shocked and appalled after someone left a threatening note on a popular trail this week.
The note, reportedly left in multiple places along the Baden Powell trail, warns the owner of a dog named Rosie that the dog can expect to be struck in the skull with a weapon if encountered— and it goes further, threatening the owner too.
"I was attacked once and now will carry a 20-inch chain with a one-pound steel ball on the end to crack the dog (and the owner if need be) on the skull," the note reads.
The threat was very concerning for Chantelle Dawson who first became aware of it on Tuesday.
Dawson is the owner of Treks 4 Pets, a local dog-walking company, and her own dog closely matches the note's description of Rosie, a grey pit bull.
"What concerns me about it is the fact that they're threatening harm to both dog and human," said Dawson.
"The fact that they feel they've had a run-in with a dog, and that the best way to deal with it is to carry a ball and a chain around in the forest, when I have staff on the trails, that's a very scary thing to hear."
Other dog walkers in the area said they didn't feel as personally threatened, because their dogs aren't grey pit bulls, but they did express shock at the violent note.
"I'd be upset if I saw someone with a chain and a ... ball with some metal on it," said Diane, who declined to give her last name. "The content of the letter, more than anything else, is the shocking part."
Emily Warnock is a professional dog walker who frequents the trails in the area.
"I was appalled at the content of it, because it's a threat to somebody's life — not only a human's life, but an animal's life," she said. "It seems very extreme to me."
"If I were [Dawson], I couldn't walk my dog here, for fear that my dog was going to get clonked on the head by a ball and chain," said Warnock. "People on the trails are very unpredictable."
Both Dawson and Warnock suggest that anyone who gets attacked by a dog report it to the District of North Vancouver authorities, rather than taking matters into their own hands.
Officials with the district said the information in the note is vague about when the alleged dog attack happened, and there was no record of any reports about Rosie, the pit bull.
North Vancouver RCMP said they have not received a formal complaint about the letter and have not opened a file on the the case.
"The issue is that whoever wrote this note is threatening violence against a dog and a human, and that's just bizarre. It's a bizarre way of dealing with it," said Dawson.
"It does get tiresome, the reaction that we get to having this breed. The bottom line is [my dog, Sophie is] a great dog, and I don't want to be the victim of somebody's attack just because they have a certain opinion of a breed."
Follow Rafferty Baker on Twitter: @raffertybaker
