Wilsonville Spokesman Online

Wildcat Haven employee saves the life of a stranger's dog

Renee Radziwon-Chapman was in the right place at the right time for Maggie

• By: Josh Kulla  
• Published: 2/23/2010 1:10:27 PM

Photo By: Photo courtesy of Earl WeberRescuing Maggie
Renee Radziwon-Chapman heard the whimperings of Maggie, who had become trapped under the cover of an outdoor pool.

It was a case of being in the right place at the right time.

Add a dash of irony and a dramatic rescue, and it all adds up to an exciting story in which everyone involved came out smiling.

It started last month when Aaron Chapman turned up for his volunteer shift at the Wildcat Haven with his wife, Renee Radziwon-Chapman, a veterinary technician who last year became the Haven's first full-time employee. The couple quickly got to work cleaning cougar enclosures and preparing food for the Haven's other residents, all of whom are captive-born wildcats rescued primarily from abandonment or abusive homes.

Amidst the growls, chirps and purrs of the various big cats, the last thing they expected to hear were the whimpers of a dog, apparently in stress.

“Aaron volunteers at the Wildcat Haven; he’s laid off like a lot of people, and he actually heard the dog whimpering,” Radziwon-Chapman said. “They (Haven founders Cheryl and Michael Tuller) don’t have a dog, so it was a strange sound. It wasn't a dog barking, it was a dog that was stressed.”

Chapman called to his wife to check out the commotion. So she climbed up onto the top of a cougar enclosure and peered over the tall fence that surrounds the Haven. 

“I couldn't see too much, and I realized the sound was splashing water in a pool,” she said.

Located near Parrett Mountain between Wilsonville and Sherwood, the Tullers don't have many neighbors. But one of the few they do have has an outdoor pool open to the elements. Somehow, a dog had made its way to the edge of the cougar enclosures and had gotten stuck in a pool cover while trying to take a quick swim.

Radziwon-Chapman quickly surveyed the scene.

"The dog had fallen into the cover and got caught in the pool," she said. "And it's a pretty deep pool and she was pretty stressed out, so I did what anyone would do and jumped in. She was so stressed out."
The dog, an Australian Sheppard, appeared on the verge of panic. Nonetheless, the animal allowed Radziwon-Chapman to hoist its 65-pound body over her head and thrust her onto the pool deck. From there, the dog bolted into the woods and out of sight.

"I think she was so desperate she didn't care," she said. "She was so tangled up in the cover. The water was up to my waist, and when I got to her, she took off."

After drying off, Renee and her husband were curious who the dog belonged to. The Tullers pointed out a nearby resident whom they knew owned several dogs, so they left a note on Earl Weber's door informing him of what had happened.

They didn't have to wait long for a reply. The dog did, in fact, belong to Weber, and he was extremely grateful.

"Renee left a note saying what had transpired, and she was worried that Maggie might be in shock because she was so shy and afraid," Weber recounted. "Not knowing of course that she's always that way. We kept an eye on her and everything turned out fine, and if anything, she's now a little friendlier."

He explained that Maggie, the Australian Sheppard who had bounded out of Radziwon-Chapman's arms the second she encountered dry land, is an extremely reclusive dog because of her former role as a breeder at a Portland-area puppy mill.

After being moved from home to home during early adulthood, Maggie, now 13 years old, simply stopped trusting people, he said.

That made her exploits all the more surprising, he added.

"She spent her life with a breeder and didn't have much of a life," he said. "She's a very timid, shy dog, and it amazed me she ran off on this big adventure."

Weber suspects another of his dogs, Bosco, likely applied a classic case of peer pressure on his older companion in an attempt to get her to accompany him on a forest hike.

"Bosco is 3, and he's the one that leads her," he said. "It was just very fortunate that Renee was around and recognized the sounds of a dog in distress. Otherwise it could have been curtains for Maggie, it could have been the end right there."

Weber went on to write a glowing letter praising the couple, and he donated $100 to the Wildcat Haven to back up his words.

"He (Aaron) heard the dog crying and came down and asked if the neighbors had a dog," Cheryl Tuller said. "When I told him no, that's when he grabbed Renee and she ran up to see what she could do. So because he was here volunteering, the dog was saved. Together they saved it, thank goodness."

Wildcat Haven: www.wildcathaven.org.

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