PALMER, Alaska — Andre the two-legged dog was rescued last winter when a woman noticed the animal trailing blood across a country road.
The large, friendly mutt lost most of the lower half of his left legs after getting caught in an animal trap or snare.
Now, the black and brown canine has become a symbol in Alaska for what pet owners and animal lovers say is a gruesome and growing problem: pets accidentally caught in traps and snares meant for wild animals.
The problem, animal owners and advocates say, is increasing as more people move into and use areas of Alaska that were once wild.
“I don’t know what the long-term answer is to it really. The Board of Game is caught in the middle between two groups,” said Cliff Judkins, chairman of the Alaska Board of Game. “This thing has been going on for a long, long time.”
Karen McNaught of Palmer nursed Andre back to health, although she initially didn’t think he would make it.
“No one had seen a dog with two legs cut off like that,” she said. “The bone was sticking out on both of them. It was horrible.”
Now, Andre bounces around her back yard like a pogo stick. When tired, he leans against the house or the fence. The plan is to fit him with prosthetic legs.
The Alaska Board of Game heard plenty of complaints from trappers last year after it approved restrictions requiring that traps and snares be placed 50 yards off trails and trailheads in Chugach State Park.
That move came after the game board approved trapping wolverines in the nearly half-million-acre state park near Anchorage. Warning signs about trapping are posted near trailheads and trails, but dogs are not required to be leashed in the park. Two dogs were caught in wolverine sets — the same as the number of wolverines, said Rick Sinnott, Anchorage area wildlife biologist for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. One of the dogs died.
