Denise Crosby: Elusive Tumor Dog finally catches a break
By Denise Crosby dcrosby@stmedianetwork.com January 26, 2012 6:30PM
Known as 'Tumor Dog' because of the five pound tumor hanging off her body, the fawn colored Rotweiler mix has earned the new name 'Windy' because she eluded capture by authorities for over a half year. Here Aurora Animal Control Officer Ben Torrance, one of the officers that finally captured her, gives her a scratch behind the ears, Thursday, Jan. 26, 2012 at the Aurora Animal Control facility on River Street. | Steven Buyansky~Sun-Times Media
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Updated: February 28, 2012 8:18AM
Surrounded by her captors — now her biggest fans — Windy (the Wonder Dog) hardly lives up to her notorious reputation as a wanted fugitive.
For six months, the rottweiler/shar-pei mix eluded animal control officers in both Aurora and Naperville with her speed — 30 mph, they estimated — and ability to leap over barricades much like a deer.
Even more amazing: She could do all that with a 5-pound tumor hanging from her underside.
Finally captured Jan. 4, Windy — so named because of that quickness — turned out to be such a lovable, sweet-natured dog that everyone who meets her immediately wants to take her home.
That’s especially true of Ben Torrance, the animal control officer who dropped the net around her after a group cornered the stray near Ogden Avenue and Longrove Drive on Aurora’s far east side.
“I thought, FINALLY ... we caught her,” he said of the animal known until then as Tumor Dog to hundreds in the community who’d spotted her and to those trying hard to capture her.
Since last summer, calls were coming in from an 8-mile radius that included Aurora, Naperville and Warrenville. After we wrote about Tumor Dog three months ago, even more reports flowed in, including those checking to see if she’d been saved.
Up until her capture, the last time officials got close to her was the week of Thanksgiving near Kautz and Montgomery roads. Officer Quentin Johnson said he’d cornered her and got within a foot before she suddenly turned — and jumped over three 4-foot-high fences, one right after the other.
When the call came in early January that the dog had been spotted, Johnson requested backup from other departments — including Aurora police and Naperville Animal Control — because of the stray’s reputation for outmaneuvering the experts.
The longest any of these officers — some with 20 years experience — could remember a dog avoiding capture was a week. To do so for this long — and with a large tumor — is “almost like she has supernatural powers,” chuckled Torrance.
But Windy the Wonder Dog turned out to be mortal, sort of. Initially spotted near a fence in an open field, officers tried to sneak up behind her, but she again bolted — running into Bloomfield Lane, where they blocked her exits. That forced her to run toward Torrance, who cornered the stray between a car and garage.
“We expected a fight,” he said. “She was scared ... trembling. But she did not bite or growl.”
Turns out the stray — they suspect abandonment because of the tumor — just wanted to be loved.
The newly named Windy lay in the back of her cage at first, said Sue Knight, interim manager with Aurora Animal Control, but after a few days her tail began wagging. And it’s not stopped since.
No doubt she was glad to get rid of the 5-pound stem tumor, removed at the Oswego Animal Hospital several days after her rescue. Windy appears to be 8 to 10 years old. And she not only has some pretty bad teeth, probably from gnawing on rocks and such in her adventures on the wild side, she’s battling heartworm.
Because medicine for that disease is so expensive, Windy will head to A.D.O.P.T. Pet Shelter in Naperville today , where she’ll be nursed back to health — in eight months or so — and turned over to a new family.
Judging from the adoration she receives now at the Aurora animal facility, expect a long line to form.
Even Torrance, who already has two dogs and a couple preschoolers at home, has formed a strong bond. “My house is full,” he said, “but, boy, I thought about it.”
Johnson agrees there’s never been a dog quite like Windy to come through their doors. She gave quite a few people a run for their money, but “we could not have hoped for a better ending.”
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