Overview:
Linda Preston's horse, Tadzi, went missing after running into the woods during his first night at a new farm in Conway. The horse was found the next day thanks to a crew from the Franklin County Sheriff's Office.
GREENFIELD — Draft horse Tadzi’s first night in Conway was not a smooth homecoming.
Seeking a friend for her horse, longtime Conway resident Linda Preston had brought Tadzi from his former home in Barre to her Conway farm on Dec. 14. But instead of settling in, the new resident set his sights on the overgrown forest beyond the farm.
“Then Tadzi just went out into the woods. It wasn’t quite dark yet, but he was gone,” Preston remembered. “I was horrified.”
Panic kept Preston awake that night. With a broken foot and crutches, she trudged through the snow searching for Tadzi and hired drones to fly above the area. In the dark, she drove down town roads for hours before taking breaks at home and getting back in the car, a cycle that lasted until sunrise.
The next morning, Preston called the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office. Leslee Colucci, director of the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office Regional Dog Shelter, along with Gabrielle Trudeau, who works at the shelter, and Animal Control Officer Hillary Szteliga drove to Conway to help.
Wrapped in at least three layers, the three women followed Tadzi’s zigzagging tracks through the woods, deciphering hoof prints among tracks of many sizes and species in the woods, from bobcats to foxes, deer, moose, and even Preston’s boot for her broken foot.
“We had to figure out if it was her boot or a horse’s hoof!” Colucci said.
“It was every critter you could think of that lives in Massachusetts,” Szteliga said.
After three hours in the chill and wind, the three women spotted an odd horse out at a farm just half a mile from Preston’s backyard. Every horse sported a halter and blue blankets except one halter-free horse in a purple blanket with burs tangled in his mane.
“One of them is not like the other. … No way is it this simple,” Szteliga remembered thinking. The three looked over in shock.
“They’re herd animals; they try to find more horses,” said Trudeau, who grew up with horses since her first pony at 9 years old. But Trudeau said the neighbor horses were not pleased with their visitor.
“Horses have a hierarchy. When a new horse comes in, there’s a lot of squealing and kicking,” Trudeau said. “They were charging the fence at him, so we were like, ‘Yeah, he doesn’t belong here.'”
Before Preston could rush to her trailer, she spotted the three women walking up the road with Tadzi in tow.
“One of the worst days of my whole life became one of the best,” Preston said.
The women relived the search with Sheriff Lori Streeter, Assistant Superintendent of Special Operations Chris Pelletier and Executive Assistant to the Sheriff Ashley Lipka around a table in the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office four days after the rescue. Warden, the 3-year-old tuxedo cat and comfort pet in the office, also joined the conversation, sprawling across the table to hear about Tadzi’s adventure.
The morning marked Preston and the rescue crew’s first reunion since Dec. 15 and a formal recognition of the crew’s courage through the cold and wind.
“I was completely amazed. They were just so willing to help,” Preston said. “I was so excited that they were going to get recognized, because that was such a good deed they did and [they’re] such good people.”
Streeter and Pelletier echoed Preston’s praise.
“This is some of the good work that doesn’t always get recognized, because people don’t necessarily know that this is what we do,” Streeter said. “They face things that you wouldn’t imagine.”
While others clock into office jobs, Szteliga, Colucci and Trudeau often find themselves in the streets and woods of Franklin County towns. Searches for rats, porcupines, skunks, opossums, herons, hawks and owls fill Szteliga’s days.
“What I love about it is every day is different,” Szteliga said.
Despite the long list of animals that come up in calls to the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office, the search for Tadzi marked the crew’s first horse rescue on the job. Still, Colucci and Trudeau are no strangers to a loose horse.
“I grew up in a neighborhood where there was a pony in every backyard,” Trudeau said of her childhood in Lexington. “If you’ve owned horses, you’ve chased horses.”
Colucci told those gathered around the table that she named one of her horses “Hattie” after the animal zipped from Conway to Hatfield, crossing county lines. The story finished with Hattie finding a new home with Colucci’s friend.
“Like other animals, they’re nonjudgmental. … You just fall in love with them,” said Preston, even after Tadzi’s takeoff. When asked about the horse’s personality, she said simply, “He’s fearless.”