WHISTLER — A man who shot 100 sled dogs complained to WorkSafeBC B.C. that he suffered post traumatic stress after the slaughter and was granted compensation.

The news has horrified dog lovers and led to a joint criminal investigation by the RCMP and B.C. SPCA.

“Shocking doesn’t begin to describe what happened to these poor dogs,” said an emotional Marcie Moriarty, B.C. SPCA’s manager of animal-cruelty investigations on Monday.

“I don’t want to use the term euthanize because the man describes it as execution-style killings.”

A WorkSafe B.C. report dealing with the compensation, details the gruesome scenes on April 21 and 23, 2010, when the worker euthanized 100 dogs over two days. The size of the cull meant he had to kill the dogs in full view of the rest of the pack, leading to a bloody frenzy of wounded, frightened and angry dogs.

The dogs were buried in a mass grave.

One dog, Nora, was found crawling around in the mass grave 20 minutes after he had dumped her body into the pit. Others were chased, shot cleanly or died after their throats were slit. The employee, according to the report, was “covered in blood” when finished.

According to the report, on April 21, the man wounded one dog — Suzy, the mother of his family’s pet dog — who managed to run away despite having the left side of its cheek blown off and an eye hanging from its socket. A rifle with a scope was used to kill her from a distance; that bullet passed through her and seriously wounded Poker, a dog that wasn’t slated to be euthanized. It was later killed.

On April 23, one dog, who had part of its head blown off, attacked him after he ran out of ammunition. He killed the dog with a knife, slitting its throat while it was on top of him.

The report said the man, who had named and raised many of the dogs, has “continued to deteriorate mentally and emotionally” since the incident.

While not named in the WorkSafe B.C. documents, the man has been identified as Robert T. Fawcett, listed in corporate papers as a director of Howling Dog Tours Whistler Ltd.

In a Dec. 27, 2010, posting on a website forum for trauma sufferers, a Whistler resident named Bob Fawcett, an award-winning dogsledder, wrote: “I’ve had a pretty horrible ordeal and actually figure I may be able to be a good sounding board for others ... and it has pretty much destroyed my soul.”

Outdoor Adventures at Whistler said in a release that it has had a “financial interest” in Howling Dogs Tour Whistler Inc., which has “operational control of the dogsledding operations,” for four years.

In the statement issued Monday, Outdoor Adventures said: “OAW was aware of the relocation and euthanization of dogs at Howling Dogs in April 2010, but it was our expectation that it was done in a proper, legal and humane manner.”

Outdoor Adventures is owned by Joey Houssian, son of Intrawest founder Joe Houssian.