CASCADE TOWNSHIP, Mich. (WZZM) – The owners of a wandering dog nicknamed "Shaggy" have come forward to tell how the Newfoundland mix from a kennel in Lowell ended up wandering in a Cascade Township neighborhood, evading capture for more than six months.
The Cascade Township neighborhood calls the dog "Shaggy," but to Christina Sanchez and her daughter Angelica Belladonna his name is Jacob.
"I wanted to come to you and let you know that he does have a past, and he did have an owner that cared for him," explains Sanchez.
In July, the mother and daughter saw an ad from Majestic View Kennels in Lowell offering a Newfoundland mix dog that was hypoallergenic, so they took a trip to pick one up.
"The particular dog that I adopted had an eye injury and needs surgery," explains Sanchez, "so I wanted to adopt him and get the medical attention that he needed."
It was a struggle to get the dog on the leash, but they took back to their home in Wyoming. They named the dog Jacob. Then, they realized the dog was very skittish around people. Angelica said she would have to wait, sitting still more than half an hour, to be able to touch the dog.
"We had him for three weeks, and he just wasn't progressing any," explains Angelica. Jacob even jumped their fence to play with a neighbor's dog. At this point, they realized they needed help to socialize the dog.
Christina realized that she was unqualified to train and take care of the dog, so she went on Craigslist to see if she could find the dog a home or a trainer who could help him.
After receiving a number of calls, she went with Mark David and groomed the dog to look presentable.
"My sister-in-law runs LifeLine Service Dogs locally and out of Texas, and I am kind of assistant instructor," David explained. He offered to take the dog for free to train and then give the dog back or find a new home if the dog couldn't be socialized.
He went to pick up the dog with his daughter and spent three hours capturing the dog in a half-acre back yard.
"Yeah, this is an anti-social dog," David said.
He took the dog home and found that he was friendly toward people, but scared of them. He first tried tying the dog up, but realized the dog was going to hurt himself. He then put the dog in tall, fenced-in kennel.
"He was sleeping. He was howling. He was eating the food I had given him," David says. "I came out at 6:00 in the morning to put him on a leash and take him for a walk, and he was gone."
Jacob had ripped open the kennel -- something no dog had ever done before -- and then jumped another fence to escape. David went searching for the dog, but "couldn't find any evidence of him."
David laid out food, and Jacob over the next couple weeks would come back and eat, but the dog proved to be elusive. David said he called the animal shelter and animal control. In total, he said he had the dog in his possession for "maybe eight or 10 hours."
Over the next few months, he called local shelters to see if anyone had picked up the dog, but assumed the worst.
Then, almost six months later, "one of my neighbors printed off an article and said, 'Hey, this might be that dog you had once.'"
Now, the dog roams this Cascade neighborhood not too far from where Mark David lives, being fed by neighbors and outsmarting every effort to catch him.
The original owners contacted us after seeing the story on WZZM 13. They say if the dog can be rehabilitated, they would want him back, but of course he needs to be caught first.
Animal control says the dog needs be caught because he is visibly losing weight and his eye needs to be treated.
For more information, visit the Help Shaggy Facebook page.
