Trappers hired to capture escaped wolf hybrids in N.H.

LEMPSTER, N.H. — One of the seven wolf-hybrids that escaped from a pen this week returned on its own, and the police chief figured the others would follow as they got hungry.

"They are lazy like us," police Chief Shady Blackwell said Friday. "We are going to go to grocery store for food, not hunt it down. They know where the grocery store is, and it's inside the pens."

The seven escaped from Dancing Brooke Lodge sanctuary and have been spotted in neighbors' yards.

Concerned for their pets and kids, neighbors have guns ready and professional trappers were trying to capture the hybrids.

The Fish and Game Department is not involved because the dogs are considered domestic animals. But neighbors said they were concerned about safety.

Neighbor Carol LaBounty said worry over her pets and children who live nearby prompted her to prepare her shotgun. She said many of her neighbors were doing the same.

Blackwell said there was some initial panic as residents learned the hybrids were on the loose, but as he spread the word that the animals basically are shy and stay away from people, residents calmed down.

The sanctuary's 44 dogs are 50 percent to 90 percent wolf. All have been spayed or neutered. The animals are strictly regulated in most states and Dancing Brooke often takes in out-of-state animals to keep them from being euthanized.

Dancing Brooke president Bill Russell, a Massachussetts state trooper, says his organization is the only one set up to take in wolf hybrids. Russell and his wife, Anna, were cited in Maine in 2004 when dogs they were keeping there escaped.

Bill Russell said after two dogs escaped Tuesday through a hole in the fence, he opened the fence so the dogs could re-enter their pen. When the animals didn't return Wednesday, he closed the fence and filled the hole with a log. He believes the other five dogs moved the log and dug out around the fence and escaped sometime Wednesday night or Thursday morning. He said the escaped dogs are a father and six offspring.

Blackwell said Russell didn't immediately inform neighbors or authorities.

"I'm disappointed in their initial response," Blackwell said.

Russell said he didn't call local police because the dogs were close by and he believed that as a trooper, he could do a better job of searching.

The lack of communication has upset some neighbors, said LaBounty. She said she supported the sanctuary until she learned of the escaped dogs.

"He's not keeping us informed as to what's going on," she said. "Now, we want them gone, we want them off this street."

Neighbors have been complaining about noise from the sanctuary since people began bringing dogs there two years ago. This month, a judge said the 44 dogs would have to be euthanized unless new pens were built for them farther away from neighbors.

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