When photos of a female German shepherd stranded at about 13,000 feet on a Colorado mountainside were published on a climbing website, Chase Lindell and Alex Gelb knew they had to do something. According to the reports on 14ers.com, the injured German shepherd had been up there for eight days without food and water, so if she was to be saved, something had to happen fast. Lindell and Gelb, along with six other volunteers, set off up the mountain, unsure if they could even find the dog. . .and, even if they could, would she still be alive?
They did find her—injured and weak, but alive—and they braved some tough conditions to carry her back down the mountain:
“The dog seemed really weak and it couldn’t move much at all. And given the terrain there was no way the dog was walking out of there. So, we were able to get the dog into a backpack,” said one of the rescuers.
The entire operation took nine hours and required the rescuers to brave a full-blown snowstorm. They brought the dog, whose name is Missy, to a local veterinarian, where she is recovering.
Then something astonishing and infuriating happened: the dog’s owner stepped forward to claim her. Watch the video in the link below to hear Missy’s owner, Anthony Ortolani’s excuse for abandoning her, as well as for Lindell’s emphatic response to Ortolani’s request that Missy be returned to him.
Click here for a video report and the full story.