After spending weeks and possibly months roaming Ella Sharp Park, a stray dog was captured last Friday, thanks to a weeklong rescue effort by a group of animal lovers.
Initially, the male boxer “looked like an adolescent because it was so thin, but it’s probably roughly a year old,” said Jackson resident Joanne Lazarz, a member of the Michigan Boxer Club and a boxer breeder.
Last week, U.S. postal worker Judy Hartzog of Parma called her husband, Larry, when she noticed the timid dog wandering around the park during her route.
After talking with animal control officers, Larry Hartzog tried to entice the dog.
“I went and got burgers from McDonald’s and tried to lure it in,” he said. “I got it to come toward me, but it wouldn’t let me get near it. It was too timid.”
That night, Larry Hartzog, who owns an 11-week-old boxer, called Lazarz after finding her name online through a site for boxer owners and breeders.
Lazarz said that one day she and her husband spent “14 or 15 hours” trying to capture the dog. The dog would come up and eat out of her hand, but it would bolt when she tried to touch it.
Larry Hartzog said he and others showed up at the park every day last week, taking the dog bones and other goodies.
“We began asking different people who were walking their dogs in the park to take notice,” he said. “And consequently one of the other dog-walking people in the park was the one who captured it.”
A woman was able to coax the boxer into her vehicle after offering some food.
The dog has been in a shelter since and is set to be adopted today.
Lazarz said “it’s obvious at some point somebody loved this dog” because it has a name tattooed on its right ear, a common form of identification.
Lazarz can be contacted at theboxerlodge@yahoo.com.
-----
As published in the Jackson Citizen Patriot on May 6, 2011
0 comments:
Post a Comment