Workers at the Putnam County Animal Relief Center got a call on Sept. 10 that a dog was chained to the train tracks intersecting Teays Lane.

Someone had wrapped the dog's chain twice around two railroad spikes and tied it in a knot, forcing the dog to lie in the middle of the tracks. About five trains roll through the Teays Lane intersection every day. The little dog was helpless.

"There was no way the dog could have avoided the train had it come through," said Jon Davis, the director of the animal relief center.

Luckily, the dog was not tied to the tracks long before a neighbor noticed him, freed him, and called the animal shelter. A shelter worker took him back to the animal center and named him Choo Choo.

A week later, a television news station aired Choo Choo's story. The next day, Chad Bartlett and his wife, Angela Bills, took the friendly terrier-beagle home to live with them and their two other rescued dogs. 

Bartlett and Bills also changed Choo Choo's name to Arliss, which is an Irish word meaning "pledge."

"We pledge to give him a safe home and a safe environment and we won't ever have to worry about something like that happening again," Bartlett said.

So far, efforts to find the person responsible for tying Arliss to the tracks have come up empty, Davis said. Neighbors living near the tracks where the dog was tied said they did not see who did it.

Now Davis is trying to come up with a cash reward to encourage people to give information leading to the successful capture and conviction of the culprit. One person donated $50 to the reward fund. He hopes for more.

"We're hoping that with the reward being offered, someone that has information will give us a call," Davis said.

Davis said he is used to seeing abandoned, emaciated dogs, neglected by their owners. Arliss' case is a first, though, he said.

"We've never seen an act of cruelty like this," he said. "It was shocking, especially when you realize someone did this to the dog knowing he would not be able to avoid the train."

Today, Arliss is doing great, according to his owners. When he was rescued, he was already well groomed, and he hasn't made any puddles in the house, Bartlett said.

He even gets along well with Bartlett and Bills' two other dogs, a lab mix named Hero and a border collie mix named Clover. They adopted Hero after he was thrown from a moving car and picked up by an animal shelter in the northern part of the state.

They adopted Clover after learning that her animal shelter was closing, and workers were going to be forced to put down the unclaimed animals.

"He's a great dog," Bartlett said of his latest pet. "He's housebroken, he loves kids, he loves company and he loves attention."

"It blows my mind that someone would do something to a dog like this," he said.

Reach Zachary Taylor at Zachary.Tay...@wvgazette.com or 304-348-5189.