Search is on for people who abandoned dog near Coram

The Daily Inter Lake

Flathead County officials are looking for the owner of a sick dog tied to a tree and left to die in the woods off Blankenship Road.

The dog, a black-and-brown neutered male German shepherd mix with a green collar, was discovered tied tightly to a tree and whimpering in brush 50 yards off a trail by a hiker who was walking his own dog along the trail not far from Coram.

Flathead County Sheriff's Animal Warden Jennifer Benware said she got a call from the hiker about 10 p.m. Saturday.

The hiker had walked his own dog Friday along the well-used trail along Blankenship Road, where people park their vehicles and take off along the walking path. When the hiker and his dog were about 100 yards down the trail, the dog started barking and led the man to the German shepherd tied to the tree about 50 yards off the side of the trail.

Somebody had used a green horse lead to tie the dog so tightly to the tree that it could not move. It had no food or water, looked sick and was whimpering. The hiker told Benware that he thought perhaps its owners were hiking and had left the dog there, and were going to come back and pick it up.

But he returned to the same trail on Saturday, when his dog once started barking and he found the dog still tied to the tree. He called Benware to report it.

When Benware arrived she loaded him in her truck and took him to the pet emergency clinic at Central Valley Animal Hospital. Doctors at first thought they would have to euthanize the dog, she said, because of what looked like an advanced case of mange.

But a lab culture showed it was simply a bad yeast infection that could be readily treated with antibiotics and ointment.

"It was pretty nasty," Benware said, "but what these people did was uncalled for. The vet thinks they were tired of trying to cure the problem so they just tied it up out there and left it to die of thirst or hunger or having some animal come along and kill it."

Initially she thought it was an older dog because of the worn condition of his teeth. But she said the veterinarian said it actually was younger, and the worn teeth may have come from the dog being locked in a kennel and biting it.

Benware said she would transfer the dog to the county animal shelter today.

She said a deputy is ready to charge the owners with animal cruelty and abandonment.

Benware urged anyone with information that could help with this investigation to call Crimestoppers at 752-8477, or the Flathead County Sheriff's Office at 758-5610.