Originally published at Notes From The Bunker. You can comment here or there.

About 13,500 feet above the ground, among the snow-capped peaks of Mount Bierstadt in Colorado, Scott Washburn and his wife, Amanda, found an abandoned, dying German shepherd dog.

Washburn and his wife this past Saturday, Aug. 11, were on a leisurely hike up Mount Bierstadt in Clear Creek County, a 14,000-foot peak near Denver that is categorized as a “14er” because, as Washburn said, “the peak is over 14,000 feet high and considered a Class 3, meaning it is not the most difficult – but it’s too difficult for a dog to be on it or an inexperienced person.

“We were hiking to this ridge and we got off course and I was a little ahead of my wife,” he said. “She called out to me and said, ‘Hey I found a dog,’ and figured I misheard her ’cause there was no way a dog was where we were.”

This is reprehensible and intolerable behavior from the owner of this dog.  This guy takes his dog where he shouldn’t have, leaves the injured dog behind, assumes it is dead and doesn’t even go back for it. Meanwhile the injured dog is slowly dying. Happy ending is that some folks got together and rescued this dog. Happier ending would be the dog not being returned to the sack of crap that abandoned it. Best ending is that sack of crap getting a beatdown to the point he has hysterical flashbacks if he ever comes near another dog.

How someone can do this is beyond me. A dog is willing to do anything for you, follow you endlessly, take tremendous abuse, and still die to protect you. You don’t abandon it at the first sign of trouble and you definitely don’t leave it for dead if there’s even a chance its still alive. When I got Nuke I made it clear that there was a contract between us…we were all part of a team and we do not abandon each other. Ever. He trusts me to take care of him and I trust him to always be there for me. Thats how it works with dogs.

Grrr…now I really wanna go to Colorado and kick this guy in the nuts.

ETA: Oh look, he has a Facebook account. With a picture of his dog.