Violet, corgi mix

Toms River woman has real-life 'Lassie Come Home' story
By Donna Weaver, Staff Writer
Posted: Friday, January 29, 2010

Terri Zack’s efforts to find Violet, who ran away in November, cost about $5,000. Her efforts paid off when they were reunited Friday.



Terri Zack’s efforts to find Violet, who ran away in November, cost about $5,000. Her efforts paid off when they were reunited Friday.

 Ten weeks and $5,000 later, a lost and very elusive corgi mix named Violet was reunited with her owner Friday.

Terri Zack, of Leawood Avenue in Toms River, had been searching for her 3-year-old dog Violet since November after the small dog was spooked by a skunk and ran away. Zack had adopted Violet only one month before the dog disappeared, but she spared no expense when it came to finding her pooch.

On Friday evening, Violet was curled up under a blanket on a pet bed surrounded by dog treats and food in Zack’s home.

“I just never gave up hope. I knew we would find her and bring her home,” Zack said.

Early on in the search, Zack, 50, hired a psychic and a search-and-rescue team from Texas to try to locate the dog. Connecticut-based psychic Nedda Wittels, who is described as an animal communicator, costs about $200 per session, Zack said. And for the past 10 weeks, a Brick Township company called Lost Pets Found, owned by Sylvia O’Connell and Al Adamcyzak, had also been searching for Violet.

All of Zack’s efforts to bring her dog home have totaled about $5,000, according to her boyfriend, Don Hicks, of Toms River.

“It’s worth every penny. I just can’t believe this is actually happening,” Hicks said.

Bringing Violet home was expensive and anything but easy, O’Connell and Adamcyzak said. The husband and wife team marveled at the dog’s resiliency.

“She went through that awful snowstorm and survived the bitter cold afterwards,” O’Connell said.

“Finding (Violet) was about as tough as it gets. This dog was seen scaling 4-foot fences and she has 6-inch legs,” Adamcyzak said.

The couple used their tracking dog Sadie, a rescued female Doberman and German shepherd mix, to track Violet’s scent. But the little corgi mix seemed to get the better of Sadie, O’Connell and Adamcyzak. Violet avoided sensor cameras the couple set up, and although sightings of the dog poured in almost every day, each lead turned up nothing.

O’Connell said that in the beginning of the search, Violet avoided the traps that were set. The dog was even able to get food out of the trap without being captured.

“We started viewing her as a wild dog and not a lost dog. She wasn’t giving up and she knew how to survive out there or she wouldn’t be in this good of condition,” O’Connell said.

Violet is in good health, Zack said after a trip to the veterinarian Friday afternoon.

“She lost about 10 pounds, but she doesn’t have a scratch on her,” Zack said.

O’Connell said Violet adapted to the outdoors and became a good hunter.

“When we found her, her feces (was) full of rabbit and rat fur,” O’Connell said.

But what finally lured Violet into a trap at the Ocean County Landfill in Manchester Township was fast food.

“We tracked her there and found her paw prints. She was using the landfill as a thoroughfare. So the other day we stopped and got some Kentucky Fried Chicken,” Adamcyzak said.

O’Connell said they tied two original recipe drumsticks to the roof of the trap.

“We thought that (Violet) would be concentrating on getting the chicken down so she wouldn’t be thinking about the trip plate that would trap her,” Adamcyzak said.

It worked. O’Connell said Violet ate the chicken, bones and all.

“Violet is my little phantom dog. She’s the real-life 'Lassie Come Home' story,” O’Connell said.

“The moral of the story is never give up,” Adamcyzak said.

Source: http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/press/ocean/article_055b92bc-0d58-11df-83b7-001cc4c002e0.html
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