CUMBERLAND HOUSE, Sask. - A little boy innocently enjoying a winter morning outside has died after being mauled by a pack of dogs near his home in northeastern Saskatchewan.
RCMP said the five-year-old was attacked Thursday on the Cumberland House First Nation reserve near the Manitoba boundary.
"(He) was outside in his own neighbourhood, outside his own house, either just walking down the road or playing as five-year-old boys do," Sgt. Brad Kaeding said Friday in Regina.
"For whatever reason, which I guess is not known at this point and might not ever be known, he was attacked by a group of about five dogs."
"There's no indication at all that he was provoking them."
Members of the Cumberland House First Nation found the boy lying on a road. He was taken to the local health centre before being flown to a Saskatoon hospital, where he died of his injuries Thursday night.
The boy suffered bite wounds, mostly to his upper body, and possibly hypothermia, police said.
An autopsy was scheduled for Friday.
The community was dealing with the problem, Kaeding said.
"Four or more dogs have been already put down as a result of this, presumably the ones that did attack him."
Officials have said in the past that stray dogs are a chronic problem on some reserves.
In December, the Lac La Ronge Indian band in northern Saskatchewan, said roaming dogs were a challenge and that strays would be caught and destroyed to maintain some control on the canine population.
But the band also stressed the move was a last-resort measure.
Kaeding said the dogs that attacked the boy in Cumberland House appeared to be wild.
"I have heard comment from people in the community that the dogs were seen travelling together in a pack for the last few or several days," he said.
In November, a five-year-old boy in northern Alberta died after a similar attack by wandering dogs.
The mauling on the North Tallcree reserve was so vicious the boy's facial features were destroyed. The child was also found by the side of a road.
A five-year-old girl was also killed by dogs at nearby Garden River on the Little Red River reserve in November 1999 when she stopped to play with a puppy just 200 metres from her home.
That attack was blamed on animals that were starving.
