HERMANTOWN — Kevin Brazerol let his black Labrador retriever, Butch, out from the family cabin for just a moment on New Year’s Eve night. And, in just a moment, the dog was gone.
“He’s been up to our cabin hundreds of times. He’s never run off like that before,” Brazerol said.
The cabin is in the wilds of Ontario, southwest of Thunder Bay. It’s remote country, with few roads, few people and miles of forest.
And lots of wolves.
“We went out to look for him with flashlights that night. We looked again the next day. But we had to get back to town,” said Brazerol, of Hermantown. “Leaving without my dog, it was utter sadness.”
After getting his fiancee and another friend back to the Twin Ports so they didn’t miss work, Brazerol jumped back in his truck and went back up to the cabin to search for Butch.
“I walked in the woods, alone, as far as I could. Drove around. Skated up and down the lake. I couldn’t find any sign of him. But there were lots of wolf tracks around after a little snow had fallen,’’ Brazerol said. “I figured the wolves must have got him. … But I didn’t find any sort of sign of a kill or blood or anything.
Within a few days, I had an army of people helping me who I didn’t even know.
Kevin Brazerol
“Not knowing where he was, or what happened, was just agony. I wanted some closure. So I kept looking.”
Brazerol, 32, who has signed on with the Hermantown Fire Department, returned to the Twin Ports, then headed back up to the cabin a second time, this time with a friend to help search. Days had passed with no sign of Butch, who is 60 pounds with a bit of gray on the muzzle and white patches on his hind paws.
“He was supposed to be a purebred. He has papers and everything. But I've never seen a purebred Lab with white on its feet,’’ Brazerol said. “Not that it matters to me.”
Brazerol and his friend drove every back road and logging trail they could find, even using a mini-drone to search from the air. But there was still no sign of Butch. Then they had to return to the Twin Ports, yet again without Butch. Temperatures were starting to get colder.
“After seven days, I figured there was no chance of him being alive. … But then I decided to look at one of those lost pet (Facebook) pages’’ from Thunder Bay, Brazerol said.
Almost immediately, people responded to Brazerol’s efforts to find Butch — people he didn’t even know. Within days, a rural resident posted a trail camera photo of a black Lab that had come onto their property. That was Jan. 9
“There was no doubt it was Butch in those photos. Those two white patches on the paws are so distinct,” Brazerol said. “In a straight line, that person’s house was 45 miles from our cabin, and who knows how far he had wandered along the way. … It's just amazing he made it that far, that long.”
Contributed / Kevin Brazerol
Brazerol and his mother were back in his truck heading north yet again. The good news was that Butch was still alive at that point. The bad news was that no one had been able to capture him and hold him.
“Within a few days, I had an army of people helping me who I didn’t even know. They were so nice,” Brazerol said.
Focusing their efforts near the resident who had posted the trail camera photo, Brazerol eventually found a woman and her daughters living in a remote area who said they had fed a dog matching Butch’s description but that the dog was skittish and wouldn't come close.
“They weren’t on Facebook so they had no idea what was going on all around them,’’ Brazerol said.
Indeed, Butch came to the family's property that day, and Brazerol saw his dog, at a distance, for the first time in 11 days. But Butch took off when he saw the people.
“That wasn't like him. I went to the edge of the woods and called his name, shook his food bowl. … But he wouldn't come back out. He would never have done that before. He must have been traumatized by something after being alone so long,’’ Brazerol said.
Brazerol found an old homestead, just down a dead-end road from where he had seen Butch, where there was an old barn with open doors.
“I figured that’s where he must have been spending the nights. … So I put food in there along with my snowmobile jacket to see if maybe he would stay,’’ he said.
That night was the coldest night of the ordeal, hitting 12 degrees below zero. Brazerol and his mother stayed in a Thunder Bay hotel, then returned early the next morning to keep watch on the barn from a distance. It was Jan. 12.
At one point, Butch came out of the barn, did his duty, then slogged back inside.
“He didn't look good,” Brazerol said. “His head was down the whole time. You could tell he was hurting.”
Afraid of spooking the dog yet again, they waited in the truck for Butch to make a move. And waited. In mid-afternoon, Brazerol decided to make the move.
“I was really afraid of scaring him out of the area when we had him that close. … I snuck around to the door of the old barn as quietly as I could and came in so he couldn't see me. And when I got inside, there he was, sleeping on my jacket,’’ Brazerol said.
Brazerol softly called Butch’s name. The dog raised his head and the two locked eyes.
“Then he came right over to me. He wasn’t afraid anymore,’’ he said.
Brazerol and his mom rushed Butch back to the Blue Pearl Pet Hospital in Duluth, where veterinarians removed porcupine quills from his mouth and paws. They also checked him for any other issues after spending so much time with little food and water.
Butch had lost 10 pounds and his ribs were showing through his coat.
Contributed / Kevin Brazerol
“The mortality rate for starving dogs is pretty high even after you start feeding them again, so we weren’t out of the woods yet,’’ Brazerol said.
Butch was weaned back onto solid food with a recipe of white rice and meatballs, mixed with water, for 10 days. Just this week, he started back on his regular dog food. He's still skinny, but very spunky and wagging his tail.
We will, of course, never know why Butch ran away that night. And we’ll never know why he kept going for 45 miles. After four round trips to find his dog, more than four hours driving each way, and logging more than 1,200 miles on his truck, Brazerol is happy the ordeal is over.
“It’s crazy that he survived this, that we found him. Like finding a needle in a haystack up there,’’ Brazerol said. “I’m just so thankful we have a happy ending.”
