Two apparent pranksters squeezed through a pet door to nab two dogs from the Haines Animal Rescue Kennel last week, then took the animals to a party, according to Steve Vick, HARK executive director.
“I think that whoever did it probably thinks, ‘Oh, we’re breaking dogs from jail,’ but what they did is they took dogs that were up for adoption,” Vick said.
The two dogs, a chocolate lab named Butch and a husky mix named Brody, were located Friday morning and returned to HARK’s Small Tracts Road facility. Police chief Gary Lowe said criminal charges are pending.
Vick called police on the morning of May 27, after showing up for work and seeing a beer can outside, open doors inside and no Butch or Brody.
“At night, we use plexiglass and slide it down in the dog door so the dogs can’t go out and bark and bother neighbors if a moose comes by,” Vick said. “Apparently, someone from the outside climbed into the outdoor pen and pried open the plexiglass door and got in that way.”
Vick said the dogs likely were taken Thursday night by an adult and a juvenile who walked out the front door, took the animals to a party and then abandoned them.
One Friday sighting had the dogs at about 5 Mile Mud Bay Road.
“We found them right by the spring (at) Letnikof, coming back into town,” Vick said. “They were dehydrated, sore and one had a limp. They were pretty exhausted.”
“These are dogs we see every day, we work with and are training,” Vick said.
The juvenile left a cell phone behind that got caught in a fence at HARK, and later identified an adult who allegedly aided in snatching the dogs.
“The (HARK) board has directed me to follow through with all the legal procedures that we can,” Vick said. “We did try to file charges on the adult that night.”
He called the police department last week asking for charges to be filed.
“To let this go without consequences is just reinforcing negative behavior,” Vick said.
He said any community service hours for the juvenile should be legally binding.
“I’d like to hear the youth’s side of it and how it happened,” Vick said. “I can understand peer pressure and maybe you’re a little tipsy, but, at the same time, I want them to know that they endangered these dogs; these were homeless dogs, looking for adoption.”
Since the incident, adoption papers came in for Butch.
Vick said the situation would have been much more dangerous if the offenders freed an aggressive dog or one in poor health.
He and another HARK representative took the two dogs home Friday night, due to concerns about their safety.
“We have already installed locking mechanisms in all of the doors. We are considering video surveillance and we will most definitely extend the chain-link fence on the outside of our kennel up to the roof of the building,” Vick said.
HARK postponed a Saturday veterinary appointment for Butch so he could recover. The veterinarian from Haines Junction, Y.T., arranged another visit for the following day.
“Anyone who knows vet care around here knows it’s not easy to get a vet appointment,” Vick said.