CRITICAL UPDATE April 23, 2026 (originally published March 21, 2026):

Ultimately, the Crown has the final say on whether criminal charges are laid against Carly Young — so please do NOT stop sharing the following email campaign.

Niagara Police assigning detectives and opening an investigation is a direct result of public pressure – thank you to all who have filled out the form and shared it..

But charges have NOT been laid, and this is often where cases lose momentum if the public goes quiet.

We cannot let that happen here.

Please keep the emails going, keep sharing Dakota’s story, and help ensure the Crown knows this case is being watched closely.

On a blistering hot summer afternoon in Niagara Falls, a young German shepherd named Dakota ran through the streets in blind panic. She wasn’t just loose — she was fleeing.

Metal pipes clanged behind her as they struck the pavement, her paws tearing open on the scorching concrete.

A tight muzzle crushed her mouth shut, and witnesses reported that jammed inside it was a plastic bag.

Witnesses watched in horror as she tried to breathe, gasping through obstruction and heat, choking while traffic passed around her.

She was not aggressive. Dakota was suffocating.

Dakota collapsed on the sidewalk, her body shutting down from heat, terror, and oxygen deprivation.

Blood covered her. The plastic was still forced into her mouth.

As one woman tried desperately to help, Dakota fell and seized on the pavement and died there in full public view.

Dakota’s death raises a question no community should have to ask: when suffering is this obvious, why does it not automatically trigger a criminal investigation?

The criminal code of Canada has sections specifically to address exactly this kind of heinous, foreseeable, prolonged agony.  

Being charged under the Provincial Animal Welfare Services (PAWS) ACT will result, at best, with a slap on the wrist fine — and NO criminal record.

When a case this severe is handled as paperwork, instead of a potential crime, the system stops protecting the vulnerable and starts protecting procedure.

Dakota is gone. What remains is accountability — and the responsibility to ensure that preventable deaths are treated with the seriousness the law was written for.

Dakota’s death cannot be filed away as just another “animal welfare incident.”

The Criminal Code already exists for cases exactly like this — where suffering is prolonged, foreseeable, and preventable.

When the legal threshold appears to be met but charges are not pursued, accountability depends on the public insisting the law be applied.

Add your voice now.

Send the email below and request that Crown prosecutors review this case under sections 445 and 445.1 of the Criminal Code of Canada.

Individual messages matter — they demonstrate public interest, reinforce transparency, and ensure this death receives the serious legal scrutiny it warrants.

This is a done-for-you email that makes it easy to contact the decision-makers who can end horse slaughter in Canada.

Step-by-Step

1. Fill out the form and if you live in Ontario please include your postal code.

Your postal code is used only to identify your local MPP so your message goes to the right office.

2. Click “Generate email”.

A pre-written email appears. You can send it as-is or personalize it if you wish.

Your own email program opens with the message addressed to those who can bring about change.

You simply press Send within your regular email program.

[IF you have any challenges you can always scroll down further on the page for a copy and paste version of the letter and the emails to send it to.]

————

What the form does…

Ensures your message reaches the right decision-makers.

Saves you time — no research or drafting required

Your Privacy

Your email is sent from your own email account

Your personal information is not stored.

Subject line:
Lay Criminal Code Charges – Death of Dakota

To Whom It May Concern,

I am requesting that this matter be reviewed for charges under sections 445 and 445.1 of the Criminal Code of Canada in relation to the death of the German shepherd known as Dakota in Niagara Falls (Case #25-0058).

Eyewitness accounts describe a dog running in extreme distress on a hot day while wearing a tightly restrictive muzzle with a plastic bag forced inside, impairing normal breathing. Dakota collapsed in public after prolonged suffering — overheated, injured, and in respiratory crisis — before dying on the pavement.

The owner, Carly Young, has been charged only under the Provincial Offences Act. If convicted, this would not result in a criminal record and would not meaningfully restrict future animal ownership.

Sections 445 and 445.1 make it an offence to wilfully cause, or as an owner permit, unnecessary pain, suffering, or injury to an animal. The legal threshold is not intent to kill, but whether the suffering was foreseeable and preventable. A restrained animal deprived of the ability to breathe and exposed to extreme heat presents an obvious and substantial risk of severe distress and death.

Where suffering is prolonged, observable, and predictable, the circumstances meet the threshold for criminal investigation rather than regulatory enforcement alone. These Criminal Code provisions exist specifically for situations involving reckless disregard resulting in catastrophic harm.

I respectfully request confirmation that this case has been reviewed for Criminal Code prosecution and referred to police and Crown counsel for assessment under sections 445 and 445.1.

Sincerely,

[Name]
[Phone]
[City/Province]

Mike Sokolski – Crown Attorney (Niagara North)
michal.sokolski@ontario.ca

Todd Morris — Crown Attorney (Niagara)
todd.morris@ontario.ca

Hillary Lowry — Crown Attorney (Niagara)
Hillary.lowry@ontario.ca

Randy Schwartz – Assistant Deputy Attorney General
Randy.Schwartz@ontario.ca

Michael Kerzner — Solicitor General of Ontario
Minister.solgen@ontario.ca

Doug Ford — Premier of Ontario
premier@ontario.ca

Doug Downey — Attorney General of Ontario
doug.downey@pc.ola.org

Every year thousands of horses are routinely slaughtered in Canada, for human consumption, but you can help us ban horse slaughter in Canada and beyond.

Some of the meat is consumed in Canada, and much of it is shipped to the European Union, and other markets, including Japan.

This barbaric practice is currently not legal in the United States, so horses from the United States are shipped to Canada, and to Mexico, to be slaughtered.

In addition Canada allows for the transportation of live horses to Japan to be slaughtered for human consumption, and unfortunately the transportation of horses destined for slaughter within Canada, and by air to Japan for slaughter, is far from humane.

LEARN MORE HERE <==

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