Bellingham malamute owner: ‘I don’t want someone punished. I just want my dog back.’

In a town that seems to take pride in the number of Subarus, Prii (Toyota’s official plural for Prius) and bicycles on the road, the most famous car in Bellingham is undoubtedly the 1956 Mercedes Unimog German army carrier owned by Gary Winkler.

It’s not so much the truck, itself, or even Winkler, that attracts crowds wherever he goes — though both the truck and Winkler have countless interesting stories — but it’s what Winkler transports in the oversized cargo area of the truck that’s the star of the show.

If you’ve seen the the Unimog around town, you’ve probably met Winkler’s Alaskan malamutes and maybe even been bold enough to pet them — don’t worry, they are gentle giants and so well trained they’ve actually appeared in a number of movies, following in the footsteps of malamutes Winkler previously owned.

Unfortunately, Winkler believes someone may have taken advantage of the dogs’ kind-hearted nature and made off with Polar, Winkler’s 7-year-old female. Polar went missing the afternoon of Sept. 26 when Winkler went on a short hike near Twin Lakes at the Winchester Mountain trailhead in Whatcom County. When he returned to where he was camping at about 6 p.m., Polar was gone, according to a Craigslist post asking for help in locating the dog.

“I’m devastated,” Winkler told The Bellingham Herald in an interview Wednesday. “It’s like a family member has gone missing. She is my best friend. She has shaped my life. When I got her, the whole game changed.”

Winkler is not overstating the importance of Polar — he says she’s actually a service dog that helps him with lingering pain he’s gotten from a number of injuries he’s suffered, including some that left him confined to a wheelchair for a period.

“She is a very special dog,” Winkler said. “She helped connect me to the entire community and has helped me live my life. I need Polar, and when I realized I didn’t have her, I snapped on Sunday. I broke about 10 pairs of drumsticks and just about anything else I could. I’m devastated.”

And he’s not the only one feeling the pain, Winkler said. His remaining malamute, Junior or Juni, is showing the strain of missing his mother.

“They’ve never been apart since the day he was born,” Winkler said. “He’s usually the star. Everybody loves Junior, and he loves to be the center of attention. Now he’s like, ‘Naw,’ and he just turns his back. He doesn’t want anything to do with anybody, now.”

Polar’s disappearance is even more difficult to stomach for Winkler and Junior after a third malamute, Fozian, died in January as a result of what Winkler said he believes was deliberate poisoning.

Though Winkler says there is a slight chance Polar wandered off or followed somebody who walked by the campsite, he suspects this was a deliberate act. She never strays far, he said, and when he’s taken Polar hiking before and she’s gotten tired of walking, she’s just gone back to the campsite on her own.

He said he also spent about four days in the area where she disappeared and saw no sign of her, and he’s gone back up and had several friends go to the area to continue the search with no success.

“She hates being alone,” Winkler said. “If she were still up there, she’d be screaming. You’d know exactly where she is.”

So now he’s asking for help from anybody who knows what happened to Polar.

Winkler described her as approximately 150 pounds and very rare, because she has sweat glands in the tear ducts, which causes a brownish stain on her cheeks below her eyes.

Winkler said it is even more important she is found soon, as she has a sinus infection and needs prescription antibiotics.

He asks anybody with information about Polar’s whereabouts to call him “no strings attached” at 360-920-6306.

“I miss the (expletive) out of her,” Winkler said. “I’m not looking for retaliation. I don’t want someone punished. I just want my dog back. She really is the love of my life, and I thought I was going to have at least five more years before I had to deal with losing her.”

This story was originally published October 4, 2018 at 10:55 AM.