Reward offered for information on dog that was tied up and abandoned in Malibu Canyon

An animal rights group on Monday offered a $2,500 reward for information leading to the person or people who abandoned a German shepherd in a remote area of Malibu Creek Canyon with zip ties around its mouth and neck.

According to In Defense of Animals, the dog was found by hikers around 7:45 p.m. Wednesday. They were able to remove the tethers and called law enforcement and county animal control officials.

The dog, approximately 7 years old, has since been taken to the Agoura Animal Center in Los Angeles County.

One of the people who found the animal told KTLA5 in an email that he and a friend were climbing a rock when they discovered the dog and managed to gain its trust enough to remove the zip ties.

“He’s a lovely dog,” the climber told the station. “He let me and my friend pet him and he ate our food out of our hands.”

He said the person who abandoned the dog “left him alone, down a hill in the middle of nowhere, on the side of the road. They left him to suffer. They left him for dead.”