Sled Dog Watchdog - Trooper's Page

Thanks to all those who assisted in his physical and spiritual rehabilitation and to those who testified in
court to help gain his freedom. Trooper now has the wonderful home that he was destined for - the home
which he, like all dogs, deserves. Good boy, Trooper!

Please donate to the 'Bella Fund' at the Mae Bachur Animal Shelter on behalf of Trooper.

YUKON NEWS STORIES:

'Man accused of dragging dog pleads not guilty'
Leighann Chalykoff, Yukon News - April 25th, 2007

A man accused of driving down Hamilton Boulevard with his dog tethered to the vehicle’s bumper pleaded
not guilty in Yukon court on Tuesday. Twenty-eight-year-old Stanley Gostel is facing three charges under
Whitehorse’s animal-control bylaw, said Mike Hardie, who is the investigating bylaw officer.

The incident happened in early February.

The dog, a Husky-cross, was dragged for three kilometers down the road before some motorists flagged
the truck down. The dog’s owner stopped and placed the injured animal in the back of the vehicle,
witnesses told bylaw officers at the time.

The two-year-old dog’s face, torso, front right leg and hind leg were badly abraded. Some of the wounds
on his right side were so deep they revealed muscle tissue. The dog ended up at the Mae Bachur Animal
Shelter. There, staffers nicknamed him Trooper.

Almost three months later, Trooper is still recovering at the shelter.

Two of the charges Gostel faces carry $250 fines; the third is worth $200. If convicted, Gostel could face a
punishment similar to a criminal animal-cruelty charge because of a special provision in the city’s bylaw.

Also, the court could impose an order prohibiting the accused from owning an animal for up to two years.

The trial is slated to run in Yukon court on June 21.

'Dog left for dead has day in court'
Rhiannon Coppin, Yukon News - June 22nd, 2007

Dog-dragger Stanley Gostel has lost his buddy Trooper and will have to pay more than $2,473 after
abandoning the badly injured animal in Marwell. Gostel accidentally dragged his dog from his truck’s back
bumper for almost 3.2 kilometres down Hamilton Boulevard. Then he abandoned the injured and
distressed animal in Whitehorse’s industrial neighbourhood on a bitterly cold February night.

“Mr. Gostel has shown in this case that he cannot be trusted,” prosecuting attorney Lori Lavoie told the
court on Thursday. “No animal should be in the care of Mr. Gostel.”

Gostel’s poor judgment earned him a two-year prohibition on owning another animal and a $250 fine.

Gostel must also pay $2,222.88 to the Mae Bachur Animal Shelter, which cared for the hideously skinned
animal it named “Trooper.”

The shelter paid for the animal’s substantial and numerous vet treatments and surgeries.

Gostel stonily suggested a deadline of two months to make the payments. Justice of the peace Gary
Burgess agreed.

Whitehorse charged Gostel under sections 117, 119 and 3(4) of the animal control bylaw for negligence in
the care of his pet of two years. It dropped two of the charges for procedural reasons. In the end,
Whitehorse simply prosecuted the 28-year-old McIntyre resident under section 119 of the Animal Control
Bylaw, which states everyone commits an offence who “abandons a domestic animal or bird in distress, or
willfully neglects or fails to provide suitable and adequate food, water, shelter and care for any domestic
animal or bird.”

Gostel abandoned the badly injured animal outside the veterinary clinic sometime after 7:30 p.m. on
Friday, February 9. Passerby Stephanie Brown found the dog, which had gaping wounds on several parts
of its body, wandering slowly just off Copper Road at 2:30 p.m. on Sunday, February 11. “I’d never seen
anything like that,” she testified in court.

Though the dog was missing large patches of hair and was covered in torn skin and dried blood, it
wagged its tail and walked over to Brown. The dog’s feet were oozing. Brown opened the door for the
dog, and it happily jumped in out of the cold, soiling the car with its blood.

Assuming a car had hit the animal, Brown drove it to the nearby animal shelter at 126 Tlingit Street.
There, administrator Amy Huska scanned the animal for an identity microchip and checked the PetReport
system in hopes of finding an owner. The shelter’s director OK’d emergency vet treatment. The bills were
to be paid by the Yukon Humane Society.

With the go-ahead, Brown took the dog to the Alpine Veterinary Medical Centre. Veterinarian Candace
Marche was on call. “There was a lot of oozing and leakage between the skin and the tissues underneath,”
she told the court. Marche immediately put Trooper on a steady dose of morphine and antibiotics. The
dog had suffered road burn to its face, right shoulder, knees, penis area, and belly. Trooper’s injuries
would have been even more severe had the road not been covered in ice. “The skin that had been injured
had started to die away,” she said.

Trooper’s old life had started to die away as well. Gostel wasn’t aware that he was dragging his dog, he
told bylaw officer Mike Hardie in a statement made a week after Trooper was found on Copper Road.

“Drove my friend downtown. I was not aware my dog was tied to the bumper,” he said in a statement
dated February 19. “I was shocked to find him there. I did not know what to do, so I dropped him off at
the shelter and left him there,” the constable said, reading his notes to the court.

The constable had asked him for the shelter’s address, but Gostel couldn’t provide it. He asked Gostel
about the condition of the dog: “Rough,” Gostel had said.

Was he bleeding?

“Quite a bit,” Hardie read back.

Why did you leave him?

“I thought he would be dead. He was in pretty rough shape when I left him.”

Gostel spoke mainly through his statements made to Hardie. For the most part, Gostel sat quietly in court,
his left elbow on the table with the hand supporting his chin. After he’d removed his black “Titan” ball cap,
his hair was visible: close-shaved, with a circle of slightly longer hair on top. He wore loose black jeans
with a cigarette pack in a back pocket, white Nike runners, and white-collared cotton shirt with wide
stripes of blue and red on the sleeves. He’d sip water from a plastic cup, and swiveled incessantly —
back-and-forth in small oscillations — in his chair. When he stood, he hooked his thumbs in the front
eyelets of his jeans.

Originally, Gostel pleaded not guilty to the three charges of animal cruelty and negligence put forth by
Whitehorse. But he did not dispute the evidence given against him for two hours in court Thursday
morning. For the most part, he didn’t even question the seven witnesses. He did ask veterinary surgeon
Richard Brown if Trooper showed any signs of abuse, other than the dragging wounds.

The surgeon said he couldn’t comment on whether there had been abuse or not.

Gostel also asked two people who witnessed the dragging about the state of his truck’s windows and
side-view mirrors.

They were frosted up, said witness Tim MacLelland.

They were fogged up and I couldn’t see in, said Patricia Nowell, another driver.

Ostensibly, Gostel had had no visual cue that he was dragging anything.

It was a different story for MacLelland.

Though it was dark on the road to the Canada Games Centre, MacLelland spotted something being
dragged from the back of another vehicle. His son started wailing and crying: “Dad, that’s a dog being
dragged!”

Nowell was also on the road. She had sped up from the speed limit to keep up with the truck once she
realized it was dragging a dog. She honked her horn and flashed her lights.

MacLelland also began honking, and tried to get the truck’s driver to pull over, which it did before the
intersection at the Alaska Highway. “Buddy, you’re dragging your dog,” he told the driver through the
cracked-open side window.

“Oh fuck,” the driver exclaimed as he got out. The driver called the dog’s name. The dog lifted his head.

“His whole right side looked like it had been basically torn right off,” MacLelland told the court. The driver
picked up the animal and placed it in the back of the truck, without showing any compassion or consoling
it at all, said MacLelland. “I assumed — I hoped— he was taking the dog to the vet,” said MacLelland. But
he had a bad feeling. “His whole response was like it was a big inconvenience,” he said.

So MacLelland recorded the license plate number and reported the incident through 911.

Gostel had chosen to represent himself. “It would be nice, but that’s OK,” he said when the judge asked
him if he had wanted a lawyer. He’d been working out of town, and hadn’t had time to meet with legal
aid, he said.

His prosecutor noted that Gostel had turned down legal counsel three times since February. The judge
decided to proceed.

Having received an e-mail from Pat Banks of the humane society about an abandoned dog, Hardie began
investigating. After Trooper’s tale of being found abandoned had been published in local papers,
MacLelland and Nowell phoned in with their tips.

Using the licence plate number MacLelland had reported, Hardie tracked down the truck’s driver. He found
Gostel on February 16 on Hanna Crescent and would have taken a statement that day, but judged Gostel
to be intoxicated.

John Weyland was the passenger in the truck while it dragged Trooper down Hamilton Boulevard and
when Gostel abandoned the animal, Hardie reported. Weyland did not appear in court as a witness.

Gostel called no witnesses on his behalf. He couldn’t provide the phone number of the gentleman who had
actually tied Trooper — then called “Buddy” — to the truck.

Burgess ordered that Gostel pay back the humane society for the direct medical costs it incurred in treating
Trooper through the early stage of recovery. Gostel will have to pay $2,222.88 within two months. That’s
$638.43 less than the actual costs of Trooper’s initial surgeries and drugs. The Alpine Veterinary Medical
Centre gives discounts to the humane society.

The humane society is pleased with the court’s decisions and grateful to Whitehorse bylaw department for
taking the matter seriously and performing a full investigation, said its spokesperson Pat Banks. The
humane society, which runs the Mae Bachur Animal Shelter that cared for Trooper, plans to funnel
Gostel’s repayment into their “Bella” fund for special-needs animals.

Gostel refused to comment after the judgment. He gathered his papers, slipped on his shiny blue
sunglasses and walked steadily from the courthouse.

He was probably a dog Gostel loved very much, Lavoie had told the court in closing arguments.

But today, Trooper is free to be adopted. “It almost seems that he’s conveniently forgotten his old life and
he responds well to ‘Trooper,’” his foster owner said. Today, the dog’s lost the ability to raise one of his
ears, he’s stiff in the morning and remains wary of cars, but he’s doing well, the [foster owner] added.

They hope to adopt the animal. He’s friendly, playful and “a big suck,” his hopeful owner-to-be said. “I
would be devastated if I lost him.”

Additional story links:

Care2.com: Trooper page
WARNING: graphic cruelty image

Pet-abuse.com: 'Dog dragged behind vehicle'