TUNBRIDGE — Who took Tundra?

And why?

Those and other questions surround the disappearance of a 2½-year-old Siberian husky named Tundra from a residence in Tunbridge last week, with the dog’s owner saying he returned home from an errand to find his beloved companion gone and Vermont State Police calling for the public’s help in locating the dog.

The taking of Tundra appears to have been a targeted incident, allegedly occurring during of a couple hours one afternoon when the owner was away from his home.

“He was asleep on the couch the last time I saw him and I went down to the transfer station, and when I came back Tundra was gone and my door was jimmied open,” Tundra’s owner, Brent Morrill, said in an interview with the Valley News about the Jan. 4 incident.

There were no tracks in the ground or snow indicating that Tundra had escaped, Morrill said, and nothing else from his home was taken.

Morrill reported Tundra stolen to Vermont State Police, which issued an alert later that day saying Tundra was likely taken between 1 and 2 p.m. and asking for the public’s help recovering the dog.

Morrill told the Valley News his neighbor had witnessed two trucks drive up toward Morrill’s place around the time Tundra is estimated to have been taken.

Steve Libby, Morrill’s neighbor, confirmed to the Valley News that he saw “two pickup trucks head up the hill toward Brent’s property and then about 15 minutes later the two pickup trucks came down again.”

Libby’s and Morrill’s residence on New Brighton Hill Road are about a quarter-mile apart at the end of unpaved roads several miles from Route 110 and “there’s very little traffic around here, maybe once every two or three days,” said Libby, former executive director of the Vermont River Conservancy and now a consultant.

Libby said he saw two pickup trucks, one black and one red or maroon, each with caps over their beds.

“I wasn’t looking at them as being suspicious at the time, and then Brent comes down and asks me if I had seen anything and I said, yeah. I saw these two trucks going up and coming down,” Libby said.

Robert Childs, a Tunbridge resident who administers the Central Vermont Intelligence Based Policing Facebook page, which tracks police reports of crime in the area in addition to passing along reports by residents, said there has been a rise in break-ins along the Route 110 corridor, including among several seasonal homes along New Brighton Road.

“There is a lot of unresolved crime in the area and specifically a major increase in drug-related crime,” Childs said.

Given that Morrill’s home is located miles into the back roads of Tunbridge, residents expressed skepticism that Tundra’s disappearance was a random act committed by unknown passersby and could possibly have originated in a private dispute between Morrill and another party.

“No. 1, (the perpetrator) had to know the dog was there. No. 2, they had to know the dog had meaning” to Morrill, Childs theorized. “What better way to get back at somebody you wanted to get retaliation against than to go up there and grab his dog?”

Potentially casting a cloud over Tundra’s alleged abduction are several criminal offenses with which Morrill has been charged in the past. He is currently on probation for violating an abuse prevention order, according to Vermont Department of Corrections online inmate records.

Morrill said the disappearance of Tundra has deeply hurt his 14-year-old daughter. He considers Tundra as much her dog as his.

Morrill said he is worrying about Tundra, who has a penchant for clementines and cookies.

“He probably is not good right now because I guarantee you he’s having anxiety withdrawals because he’s out of his comfort zone,” Morrill said.

John Lippman can be reached at jlippman@vnews.com or 603-727-3219.

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