Traverse City Record-Eagle

Marta Hepler Drahos

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December 26, 2011

MARTA HEPLER DRAHOS: Tugboat finds home

By MARTA HEPLER DRAHOS, Staff writer ----

It looks as if Tugboat finally has a home -- not in time for Christmas, as some readers hoped, but in time for a new start in the New Year.

The Labrador retriever-pit bull terrier mix has spent half his life at animal shelters and nearly a year on the Record-Eagle's weekly pet adoption page. Now 10, the big yellow dog is the pet everybody loves but nobody wants to take home, caretaker Linda Gottwald said.

"We get a lot of people calling and asking about him," said Linda, director of the Pine Cone Farm animal shelter in Leelanau County. "If good wishes turned into homes, he'd have been adopted 10 times over."

Tugboat's story starts in 2005 when Linda worked with an animal shelter in Florida. That's where a frail, elderly man appeared one day with a dog on the end of a rope.

"He said, 'I'm dying of cancer, I'm homeless, I can't take care of the dog,'" Linda recalled. "He handed me the rope, and the dog and I kind of sized each other up, and when I looked back the guy was gone."

Tugboat quickly established himself as a shelter leader and a favorite with volunteers.

"I don't know why he hasn't been adopted except that smaller, younger, cuter usually go quicker," said Linda, who sees a resemblance to Old Yeller of fiction fame. "He's a great dog. He's very endearing. His main downfall is cats. And he's a moose. He's strong and he pulls when he sees things. He's like a bull in a china shop. He knocks things over, chews pillows."

Eventually Tugboat was adopted -- by a tourist from England who saw him walking with a volunteer on Florida's Seven Mile Bridge. After jumping through hoops to fly him overseas, she brought the dog home to Bingley in West Yorkshire, where the town put out a banner welcoming the pair. Things were looking up for Tugboat.

Then, a week later, the shelter started to get distressing notes.

"He was chasing sheep, he bit the local vicar. (They) lived along a bridal path and he chased horses," Linda said. "He was basically running the town." Instead of surrendering him to the nearest animal shelter, where his fate would be uncertain, his adopter agreed to return Tugboat to the Florida shelter.

By 2010, when Linda moved to northern Michigan to be closer to family, the shelter had changed hands and no longer was a "no-kill" facility. Fearing Tugboat's days were numbered, a volunteer took him to a local vet, who kept him until arrangements could be made to fly the dog to Traverse City. Linda met Tugboat at Cherry Capital Airport and drove him to her new shelter, where he lives in a heated barn kennel and gets walked every day.

"He's doing fine. But I know he'd like to be inside with a family," said Linda, who hopes Tugboat finds that special someone to give him a home in his golden years before the weather turns colder. "He's older now, a little stiffer, his arthritis is going to start acting up."

Now there's new hope for the 100-pound canine with the broad chest and chipped tooth. Sharon and David Hook, of Traverse City, said they plan to adopt the dog after Christmas, when their household returns to normal and Tugboat can be their main focus.

"We want to make it a smooth transition so this is the last place he ever has to go," said Sharon, who has already ordered a special dog bed and is Tugboat-proofing her home. "I think he's a really sweet dog and he'll make a good addition to our family."

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