adding tag to the player causes issues to the npc

whenever I add a tag to my target it makes the npc accessing the script to start playing a particular animation automatically and it doesn't respond to any other condition in the script, I have tried using target= GameObject.Find("cougar") but it still throws the same error and if I don't add a tag it throws a null reference exception, please i've been battling with this for months now and any help will be appreciated here is the code below

  function Awake()
     {
         myTransform = transform; //cache transform data for easy access/performance
     }
      
     
     function Start()
     {
          target = GameObject.FindWithTag("Player").transform; //target the player 
          target = GetComponent(Transform);
          myTransform = GetComponent(Transform);
     } 
     
     unction strotAway()
     {
        animation["deerStrot"].speed=4;
        animation.CrossFade("deerStrot");
     //rotate to look away from the player
         myTransform.rotation = Quaternion.LookRotation(myTransform.position - target.transform.position);
     // move away from player   
         moveDirection = myTransform.position-target.position;    
         myTransform.position += moveDirection*strotSpeed*Time.deltaTime;
     }