Dogs were underfed, vet says

PALMER — Trial continued Monday for Doug Bartko, the Palmer-area musher whose dogs were seized in May for being underweight and dehydrated.

Twenty-five dogs were taken from Bartko’s Lazy Mountain dog kennel, some on May 5, the rest on May 6. Mat-Su Borough Animal Care and Regulation officials said at the time that the dogs were malnourished, some severely, and that most were dehydrated.

Bartko is charged with numerous counts of interfering with animal control officers, cruelty to animals and failure to provide humane care.

When officers seized Bartko’s dogs, another dog was found dead on the property.

Monday, Bartko, who is acting as his own attorney, questioned the Borough’s veterinarian, Dr. Katrina Zwolinski, about what might have caused that 26th dog to die. Bartko raised the question of hookworms since they might have caused the dog to be malnourished. He asked if the veterinarian had looked for hookworm eggs.

Zwolinski said that she did a full necropsy and found no adult hookworms in the dog’s bowels.

“If the dog had hookworms at the time of death you would expect to see those?” asked Magistrate David Zwink, who will decide the case.

“Yes,” Zwolinski replied.

Eventually, under questioning from Bartko, the veterinarian said, “it’s possible to miss a hookworm.”

Bartko said that this dog in particular had had problems gaining weight, more so than the rest of his team, and asked if there could possibly have been some other disease at play.

“She could have had some other underlying disease and as such should have received vet care,” Zwolinski said. “She died as a result of being so thin and then being suddenly fed.”

Assistant Borough Attorney Lisa Thomas went over reports Zwolinski generated as the other, live dogs were taken into the shelter. The dogs seemed to gain a lot of weight quickly once they were in the Borough’s care, Zwolinski testified.

By June 9, one dog in particular had gained 41.6 percent of the weight he had upon admission. Although the dog was not among the group that had to receive intravenous or subcutaneous fluids, the amount of weight the animal gained in the first two days after being removed from Bartko’s care indicate he was probably putting on some water weight.

That sort of thing, Zwolinski testified, “Probably denotes severe water deprivation before intake.”

In previous testimony, Bartko said he had a system set up for feeding his dogs where he would bring fish from Anchorage to feed the animals and that he had run into trouble getting fish to his dogs shortly before they were seized.

Borough Animal Care and Regulation Officer Mark Whisenhunt testified that he tried to reach an alternate arrangement in which Bartko would be given a certain amount of time, possibly with Borough help, to get the dogs back up to their proper weight. Bartko, Whisenhunt said, didn’t want to make such an agreement.

The trial is expected to continue today. No jury was selected for the trial and at the end it will be up to Zwink, instead of a jury, to issue a ruling.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.