Tuktoyaktuk dog catcher Chuck Gruben was shocked to find three dead sled dogs in a local dog yard Tuesday. (Photo courtesy of Chuck Gruben)RCMP have been asked to investigate the deaths of three sled dogs found frozen to the ground in Tuktoyaktuk, N.W.T., on Tuesday.

Local dog catcher Chuck Gruben made the grisly discovery when he chased some loose dogs back to the dog yard of Randal Boogie Pokiak.

There he found six dogs tied to the line — three were dead and three others were in extremely poor condition, he said.

"Looked like they've been there a while, pretty much starving," he said.

Although Pokiak has been in jail since the summer, Gruben said the man's sons were supposed to be looking after the animals.

The dog yard is about 100 metres from a local subdivision and within sight of neighbouring houses.

"It's sad to see something like that," Gruben said. "If you can't watch your dogs, why bother to keep dogs at all? I think that's cruelty."

He has asked the RCMP to look into the case and euthanize the three surviving dogs.

'Horrible, horrible way to die,' says SPCA

There is no excuse for letting animals suffer, said Linda Eccles, who runs the Beaufort Delta SPCA.

"I feel really sorry for everybody involved and the animals, especially, that died such a slow death. It would not have been an overnight thing — it would have been a starvation, a freezing," she said.

"They wouldn't be able to stand up for very long after they lost their body weight and freezing to the snow like that, that's just a horrible, horrible way to die."