By Paul Walsh

Minneapolis Star Tribune

Faint whimpers on a subzero night caught the ear of the pickup truck driver visiting the garbage dump on the edge of a northern Minnesota reservation village.

Clayton Van Wert followed the sound to one of several bins inside the fenced-off yard. The metal dumpster was in flames.

Van Wert said he pounded on the side of the dumpster and heard “howling, crying” before a puppy “emerged from the bottom.”

With his gloved hands clamped onto the 4-foot-high edge of the bin, Van Wert hoisted himself up and peered down at the puppy in the trash, its fur charred a deep brown.

Van Wert plucked the discarded pooch from the bin Friday night, called for help and was still fighting back tears days later as newly named Phoenix, a husky mix, is being nursed back to health by a Twin Cities veterinarian.

“I don’t believe that he got into the dumpster on his own,” said Van Wert, 55, who operates a towing and auto recovery business out of his home in Redby and is a lifelong dog owner. “He had to be put in there … by a very, very sick person.”

For the next two to four months, Phoenix will undergo skin grafts as part of his extensive and expensive treatment. Donations to the nonprofit Act V can be made at www.actvrescue.org on behalf of Phoenix or the other animals that the animal hospital treats pro bono.