DAKOTA IS DEAD. WHAT WILL THE PUNISHMENT BE?

This coming Monday, August 24th Carly Young will be sentenced in a Welland courtroom. She was found guilty of Provincial Offence Act charges earlier this year of being responsible for her dogs horrific death.

It has been 25 months almost to the day that a caring member of the public sat by Dakota’s side as she took her last breath.

Carly Young (now of Barrie, ONT) was found guilty of wrapping a groomers type muzzle around Dakota’s muzzle and tied her to garden furniture on a very hot, humid July day in 2024. After being spooked, Dakota broke free and started running, finally collapsing on someone lawn, paws torn up and bloodied from the extremely hot ashphalt.

A groomers muzzle keeps the mouth entirely shut. This made it impossible for Dakota to pant – which is how dogs regulate their temperatures. On the day in question, the temperature was 31 degrees Celsius with high humidity.

According to Dr. Ian Welch DVM who testified as to the necropsy results, Dakota would have experienced “extreme distress” before succumbing to extreme heat stroke and asphyxiation.

This is a tragic case, a case of horrific abuse. A case that almost did not see charges at all; it was only due to the loud public outcry that made it impossible for Provincial Animal Welfare Services (PAWS – AWS) to ignore.

And even the charges that were laid fall short of the criminal charges Young should have been charged under.

There are so many similarities between the case of Dakota in Niagara Falls and Heiniu in Aurora:

Like Dakota, Heiniu died at the hands of people who should have protected them
Provincial Animal Services had to be publicly pressured to act, to investigate
Niagara Regional Police & York Regional Police both refused to investigate to assess if a CRIME was committed
Both police services were NOT EVEN AWARE that the Criminal Code of Canada had animal cruelty statutes [445.1 (1) & 445.1 (3)] on the books!
That means it is criminal offence to harm an animal.
Both police organizations have failed to do their duty!

As an animal lover, as a tax payer – as a humane being I am disgusted.

What can be done? All we have is our voices. The animals have no voice.

I call upon each of you to please take 2 minutes and just fill in a couple of boxes and an already prepared letter will be sent to key decision makers – calling on them to act, to do their jobs, to protect the unprotected and get justice.

IT TAKES LESS THAN 2 MINUTES TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE...

To send a done-for-you letter writing campaign calling on York Regional Police to open an investigation into what happened to Heiniu on May 4th, 2026 at the hands of two Aurora Animal Control officers.

Can you spare just a moment?

done-for-you fill in the blanks email