Marley—recovering by the fire. (Courtesy photo)
Margie Smith of Littleton Road walks her three dogs on the Holy Hill conservation land four to five times a week. “There’s a magical energy about the trails,” she said. But Saturday morning the energy was of a different nature—the kind contained in a metal leg-hold trap, set and baited.
Smith said that when she and her dogs neared the top of the hill, the black lab, Marley, veered away from the rest of them and left the trail. “She must have smelled the bait,” Smith said. About 20 feet from the trail, Marley tripped the trap, which pinned her foot between its jaws.
Smith couldn’t free the dog and didn’t have a cell phone, so she knocked on doors until she found a phone to call Animal Control Officer Paul Willard.
Smith said that Willard didn’t believe her at first, since, as he said later, he’d never had a dog trapped in an illegal trap before. But Smith convinced him, and Willard showed up to free Marley, make sure the trap was sprung, and set about checking with neighbors, “who were horrified,” Willard said. “By the time you read this, the trap will be long gone and I will have searched for others.”
He was right, but not in the way he meant. When he returned to the spot Sunday morning, someone else had removed the trap.
Smith said that Marley, who is 12½ years old, has a swollen paw and bruised ligaments, but is doing fine. She walked up the hill again Sunday with Smith and the other dogs, but stayed on the trail this time.
