She was a big, beautiful dog that needed help, and thanks to a group of caring neighbors and the Associated Humane Societies, she is now resting easy in her transitional home at Popcorn Park Zoo.

The shy mastiff had been wandering around the senior community of Sun Rise Bay and Tall Timbers Apartments off Radio Road in Little Egg Harbor since early May. Caring people had provided her with food and friendly encouragement but the dog’s trust in humanity only went so far.

“I could only get within five feet of her,” said Sun Rise Bay resident Ray Wolf, who with his wife, Irene, was the gypsy dog’s most consistent caregiver, putting food out on their deck for her. “Three months ago she was nothing but skin and bones. Now she needs Weight Watchers,” said Wolf.

Wolf had tried other means to get the dog the care it obviously needed. Animal control had attempted to capture her, but whenever they showed up, the dog did not. Finally Wolf contacted the Associated Humane Societies in Forked River and John Bergmann, director of the AHS Popcorn Park Zoo, concocted a plan to capture her without traumatizing her. Because the dog was comfortable around chain link fencing (she often lay between the fencing of the apartment complex and the nearby St. Theresa’s church property), Wolf surmised she would be comfortable in a chain link dog run. Homestead Fence in Eagleswood Township made such an enclosure available to the cause, free of charge, and Wolf jury-rigged a pulley system by which after the stray dog entered the enclosure, the door could be pulled shut from a distance.

Yet whenever Bergmann arrived to execute the plan, the wary mastiff would not show. For a week Bergmann came morning and evening, but “Greta” was nowhere to be found.

“I called her Greta,” said Wolf, “because she reminded me of the film actress Greta Garbo. Garbo always said, ‘I want to be alone.’ And that’s the way (the mastiff) looked at me: ‘I want to be alone.’”

The two men were worried. “There was a lightning storm one night and she didn’t show up the next morning,” said Bergmann. “We knew we had to capture her before the church had the carnival. With all that noise we knew we would never find her.”

The Wednesday of the carnival, Irene called Bergmann and told him to come to the house quickly because Greta was there looking for her dinner. Bergmann arrived and finally executed the capture plan.

Once the door slammed shut on Greta, she became very agitated, Bergmann said. “I had to use a catch pole and she was really upset, but it was the only way to get her into the dog kennel for transport.” With the help of neighbors, Bergmann was able to lift the cage with the 140-pound dog into his truck.

“She relaxed by the time I got her to the zoo, and she was so tired that once she had a bed inside, she went to sleep within 15 minutes.

“The next day we started treatment with flea and tick medicine and worm medicine, and we gave her vaccines. One of our handlers picked 40 to 50 ticks off her. Her name in now Barkley and she is slowly getting used to us, but she has a lot of issues around trust.”

Bergmann said he has a couple of trainers who will be working with Barkley and she will also be getting heartworm medicine. The last procedure will be to spay her. “We think she might have been a puppy mill dog and when she was not producing she was let go in the woods. But we really don’t know her story.”

Barkley will be at the zoo for at least seven days in case the owner comes forward with a good explanation of why the dog was neglected. Yet Bergmann anticipates a much longer stay in order to socialize her. “She’ll be here until she gets a forever home,” he said.

“We would have liked to keep her,” said Wolf. “But we can’t. This is an active adult community and we’re not allowed to have pets outside. And she’s too big to be inside all day. I just want to make sure she has a good home.”

Wolf had gone to visit with her the day after her capture and for the first time was able to pet her.
“This was just God’s plan that this animal showed up in our yard. It must have been for a reason. You can’t turn your back on animals – they need your help.”

Wolf wanted to thank all his neighbors, especially Tall Timbers manager Nancy Henziker, who were concerned with the dog’s welfare and worked together to get a good ending to this story. St. Theresa’s Church leadership, too, played a part by allowing the enclosure to sit on their property for the duration of the capture caper.

— Pat Johnson