A New York State man worried he’d never see his dog, a 13-year-old Golden Retriever named Lilah, after she went missing last week.
Rudy Fuehrer actually wondered if, due to her age, she had intentionally gone off to die, he told The Times-Union. He searched for his beloved pet for two days, and it wasn’t until he was walking down a road on Sunday that he heard his dog’s voice.
“She yipped,” he told the Albany newspaper. “I said, ‘oh my God, that’s Lilah.’”
It turned out that the elderly dog was inside a drainage culvert pipe “deep underground,” according to a Facebook post from the New York State Troopers, whom Fuehrer called after he was unable to lure Lilah out with snacks.
Troopers Jimmy Rasaphone and Ana Reynas responded to the call and hatched a plan to rescue Lilah. Rasaphone “tied a rope to Lilah’s leash and disappeared into the dark pipe,” the Facebook post said.
He crawled about 15 feet into the pipe, which went underneath the road, before getting to the dog. He was then able to slip a collar over her and pull her out.
Both Rasaphone and Lilah were soaking wet when the ordeal was over, according to the Times-Union. Fuehrer said he was “dumbfounded” by the “compassion” his pet received.
He also told The Associated Press that the next time he went out with Lilah, he made sure to keep her on a leash since he “didn’t want any more escapades.”
Coincidentally, another dog in another state also made headlines this week after getting stuck inside a drain pipe. Tupelo, a bulldog in Estherville, Iowa, didn’t come back after needing to go outside, and his owner heard him crying for help from inside a drain pipe in a hole near their home, Sioux City, Iowa, news station KTIV reported.
Like Lilah, Tupelo was freed from his predicament by first responders and will hopefully be avoiding drain pipes in the future.