Lynn Lau
Northern News Services

Inuvik (Nov 04/02) - Mike Baxter wants to know who killed his dog.

The Inuvik dog musher first noticed his 12-year-old German shepherd, Ona, missing Wednesday. The next day, he found the animal dead at the edge of his lot off Navy Road.

Ona had been shot in the neck with a .22-calibre rifle and then run over with a snowmobile.

He says he could tell from tracks in the snow that Ona had dragged herself into the bushes injured, and then bled to death.

"You can see how the dog was driven over after it was bled out," Baxter says.

The purebred German shepherd was a highly trained tracking and protection dog, worth several thousand dollars. Before Baxter moved to Inuvik, he competed internationally in dog obedience trials. Ona was given to his family as a gift when he retired from the sport. But beyond the Ona's value in training and pedigree, Baxter says, she was a member of the family that his children had grown up with.

"It shakes our family pretty bad," he says.

Inuvik RCMP are investigating the incident. Anyone with information is asked to phone police.