ANTIGO — At long last, he’s been collared.
Taz, the husky mix that became perhaps the most famous dog in Antigo after 10 months at large roaming the city, was finally caught early Wednesday morning.
The news was announced by Kelly Gunderson, the founder of the Merrill, Wis. dog rescue called Rescue for Life, who posted a picture of herself holding Taz to Facebook following his capture.
According to Gunderson, Taz was caught in the backyard of a family that he had grown uncommonly comfortable around and was visiting on a daily basis since all the way back in January.
“Their dog was leaning up against them, and the homeowner was knelt down on the ground,” Gunderson explained. “Taz had his head underneath their dog letting them pet him, and the homeowner reached up and took their dog’s collar off very slowly and just reached down and were petting Taz, and Taz allowed them to put the collar on and as soon as she got it latched, she hung on as tight as she could.”
The family had informed Gunderson — who was already in contact with them about their increasingly close relationship with the dog during the past several months — that they were actually petting Taz, and Gunderson was inside their house waiting.
“I went out and slid the slip leash around the front of his head and put it on. When I tightened it down on his neck, that’s when he kind of flipped out a little bit and started thrashing and doing a couple little barrel rolls,” she said. “But I started talking to him real soft and quiet and telling him that it was OK and he was safe, and all of a sudden he just stopped and I pet his face and he just knew it was over. He never once growled, never tried to bite, nothing.”
Gunderson suggested the fact that Taz practically allowed the family to catch him was somewhat appropriate, given that he had grown so close to them already.
“This family, they’ve had so much love and patience and dedication with him,” Gunderson said. “Taz started coming every morning and they would feed him breakfast, and every evening they would feed him supper. During snowstorms, they were out there and making sure that he had cover. He had never stayed at a residence as long as what he has here. To me, that showed that he had chosen his family.”
The husky mix’s previous owner apparently concurred, according to Gunderson, who said the man relinquished his claim to Taz to Rescue for Life in April so the family could adopt him from the rescue later if he was caught.
Taz, who originally belonged to a breeder, escaped from that previous owner Oct. 26, the first day he was brought home, she said.
“When the original owner got him, he could tell that Taz had been tied with a rope because it was embedded in his neck, and his neck was raw from it,” Gunderson said. “They had loosely put a collar on him so it wouldn’t irritate his neck, and when they were taking him outside to go to the bathroom, Taz freaked out and he backed out of the collar. So it’s no fault on the owner. He didn’t know that he was such a flight risk.”
In the first few months following Taz’s escape, Gunderson said she would spend 12 to 14 hours a week in the city working to capture him. The project was made difficult by the somewhat overly-generous nature of Antigo residents when it came to feeding him, which made him adverse to her own live traps; by Taz himself, who was quick to realize each time a scheme to catch him was being hatched; and lastly, by her own commitment to corralling him as humanely as possible rather than immobilizing him with something like a tranquilizer gun, which she maintains could have harmed him.
“With Taz, we didn’t know how much he actually weighed. We didn’t know if he had any health conditions,” she said. “Depending on the tranquilizer and their adrenaline, if their adrenaline’s going really hard, it can take a while for it to kick in and he could all of a sudden drop in traffic. He could run into a wooded area and we wouldn’t be able to find him. He could run for hours before it could actually kick in because of the adrenaline. It was just a huge array of reasons that it could have gone badly.”
Though the skittish dog was endeared among many Antigo residents (a Facebook page, “The Adventures of Taz,” was even created to monitor his comings and goings), others had clearly grown impatient with his continued freedom as of late. According to a law enforcement blotter regularly sent out to local media, in recent weeks, several frustrated callers reported his presence to city police, and at least one town chairman planned to address his presence at an official meeting. Gunderson said she was aware of this growing sentiment.
“People would send me screenshots of anything that pertained to Taz. I’d even seen on the Antigo Information page those posts, people threatening to shoot him, stuff like that, and I knew it was getting to a point that it was do or die, and we needed to get it done,” she said. “When the family called me Tuesday and said how he was letting them touch him, I was like, ‘OK, we need to do this and we need to do it right and we’ve got to get it done one way or another.’ So that was our reason for making sure it got done now.”
She said the experience has still been worthwhile, especially because of the attachment she feels to Taz, and to the family who he will now live with.
“We’ve become very good friends,” Gunderson said. “We were crying and sobbing with each other and holding each other. There were big hugs before I left.”
The family, who Gunderson said wished to keep their identities private, will take Taz into their home once he is vaccinated and neutered. Gunderson — who is educating them on ways to keep high flight risk dogs secured — said that despite all these months he was running away from humans, the home will be a good fit for Taz — for more reasons than one.
“I’ve already been getting pictures of him eating out of the kids’ hands. He’s cuddling with them. The one picture that I posted, he was cuddling with me on the garage floor — he was just laying there soaking up the love. He wants the love — he just doesn’t know what it is right now. This family, they absolutely spoil their dog that they currently have now, which sadly was recently diagnosed with cancer, and it is terminal. I feel like that’s another reason that Taz has come back around so much lately. I know how dogs are with sensing stuff like that,” she said.
Other than developing extremely matted fur, Taz remained relatively healthy during the close to one year that he was roaming the city, Gunderson said.
“He’s probably going to have to be shaved down to his skin because his mats go all the way to his skin. But other than that, he is really, really healthy. The home owner kept dewormer in him and heartguard medication through his meals. I also went ahead and I microchipped him right away through the rescue,” she added with a laugh. “I made sure that was done right away.”
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