A former Colorado man has been charged in Butte, Mont., with felony cruelty to animals. Authorities say he was driving cross-country with 100 malnourished dogs crammed into a filthy school bus.

  (Photo courtesy of the Montana Standard)  Police arrested Brode age 60, in the parking lot of the Flying J truck stop in Rocker, west of Butte. Butte police say Brode was traveling from his former home in La Jara, CO, to Alaska.

The dogs have been examined by veterinarians and are being housed in a Butte animal shelter or in temporary kennels set up at the old Anselmo Mine complex in Butte.

Brode is jailed on a charge of felony cruelty to animals. A judge set bail at $10,000.

Update 10/30/08:  A Montana judge has doubled Brode's bail.

Court records say investigators found 96 dogs and 33 puppies malnourished and covered in feces and dirt.

Brode was initially charged in Justice Court and jailed on $10,000 bail.

District Judge Brad Newman increased Brode's bail to $20,000. Brode remained jailed.

The dogs are being housed in a Butte animal shelter or in temporary kennels.

Update 10/31/08:  The man facing a cruelty to animals charge in Butte claims he took good care of his dogs and the allegations against him are without merit.

Brode told The Montana Standard in a phone interview from the Butte jail that he's always taken care of his dogs.

"Every one of them has a name," Brode said. "I've bottle-fed some of them myself when they were puppies."

Brode said his dogs had plenty of food and he regularly bathed them.

However, an affidavit released in district court alleges all the dogs were malnourished, and some had broken teeth, scars, parasites and other problems. The dogs, mostly huskies and husky mixes, have since been kept in emergency kennels on county-owned property in Butte.

Brode told The Standard he was on his way from Colorado to Alaska. He said he planned to give some of his dogs away to be used in the Iditarod, which is a 1,150-mile dog sled race.

"I wanted to race in the Iditarod, I'm 60 years old, and I want to do stuff before it's too late," he said.

Brode claims some of his dogs have lineage that goes back to dogs he owned 35 years ago. He kept the dogs on 40 acres he said he owned in La Jara, CO, where he said he collected many of the dogs over the years. Brode said he wanted to build an animal shelter on his property, but claimed local authorities wouldn't allow it. That's why he claims he was moving the dogs to Alaska.

Brode says he's never mistreated his dogs and believes the county is trying to steal them from him.

Update 11/6/08:  Brode has pleaded not guilty to cruelty to animals pleaded in District Court.  If convicted, Brode faces up to two years in the Department of Corrections and/or a maximum fine of up to $25,000.

Now the county is taking care of the dogs at a temporary shelter. But unless the legal system makes a swift decision to transfer ownership of these dogs the county's hands are tied.

Butte Silver Bow Animal Services Director Phyllis Ruana has 158 dogs on her hands. That's twice the amount she had five weeks ago.

Ruana wanted Judge Kurt Krueger to transfer ownership of some of the dogs from Brode to the county so that she can take action, stop them from reproducing and find them homes, but she left the court empty-handed.

"We can't do anything with them until the court tells us that they are in our possession. We can't spay and neuter. We can't foster them or anything until the court says otherwise, so we are mostly here to see if we can do anything to increase the number," she said.

Ruana said the bills are piling up. More than $20,000 in costs to care for the dogs has accumulated.

For the time being, donations are covering those costs, but the tap is running dry and soon the county will have to take over the financial burden.

Laurel deputy county attorney Mike Clague said he is exploring legal options to help speed up a decision.

In the meantime, there is an appeal for more donations, volunteers and a bigger shelter for the dogs.

Anyone wishing to help can contact Katie Donovan at 4060 498-0714.

  (Photo courtesy of the Montana Standard - Tom Malloy of Butte helps remove dogs from the school bus.)

       (Photos courtesy of KXLF) A building at the Anselmo Mine complex, Excelsior and Caledonia, was converted into an emergency shelter — where kennels were erected — Monday morning to house some of the older dogs. The puppies are being kept at the county's Chelsea Bailey Animal Shelter, 600 Centennial Ave.

Volunteers from the Butte YMCA helped remove dogs from the bus and set up kennels Monday at the mineyard.

Update 12/4/08:  Brode charged with abusing more than 100 dogs changed his plea to guilty to aggravated cruelty to animals.   Phillip Brode was given a 14-month suspended sentence and fined $1,000.

District Judge Kurt Krueger said he’ll allow Brode to take six of the dogs with him to Colorado where he will be monitored for the duration of his sentence by the Humane Society and a sheriff’s office.

About 100 dogs were seized after they were found crammed in a broken down school bus and trailer at the Flying J truck stop in Rocker in early October.

The dogs, which are huskies and husky mixes, now number about 200 as puppies continue to be born. Foster homes have been found for more than 40 of the dogs.

Update 12/10/08:  Brode left the Mining City taking with him six dogs.

Before he left, Brode spoke out about the incident, claiming he did nothing wrong and was on his way from Colorado to Alaska and planned to breed the dogs and find homes for some of the puppies along the way.

  (Photos courtesy of KXLF)   "There were never 100 dogs in that bus, there were 40 in that bus," Brode said.

Brode, who said he had been a breeder for over 30 years, claimed he loved his dogs. He also criticized Butte Silver Bow Animal Services for spaying and neutering the animals, saying he intended to breed them.

Brode said he had 40 acres of land in Colorado where he cared for the dogs.

After his sentencing, Brode thumbed through pictures of the dogs to select the ones he would take with him.

Update 12/11/08:  Brode crashed his school bus and trailer according to the Wyoming Highway Patrol.

Officials say Phillip Brode was traveling much slower than the 75 mph limit on I-80 East when he was rear ended by a semi truck west of Laramie, Wyoming. The bus and trailer were totaled, and the highway had to be shut down for over two hours.

The Laramie Police Department's Division of Animal Control says the dogs are all in good health. Officers in Laramie traced the dog's medical history back to Butte Silver Bow using microchips which were implanted in the dogs when they first arrived in Butte.

We've been told that Brode was in a neck brace when he came to see the dogs at the shelter in Wyoming. He's expected to pick up the animals and continue on to Colorado in a U-Haul.

Update 2/28/09:  Nearly all the huskies seized in a Butte animal cruelty case have found new homes.

About two dozen dogs remain at Camp Husky.

Animal Services director Phyllis Ruana said a large number of the puppies went to shelters in Missoula, Bozeman, Helena and Hamilton while volunteers and Camp Husky employees sought homes for the adult dogs.

Ruana said caring for the animals cost more than $150,000, with most of that cost paying for spaying and neutering the dogs. The effort has received about $26,000 in donations.

Reference:

The Montana Standard

KXMC

KXLF

Missoulian

The Mercury News

KPAX

KXLF