A lostGerman shepherdwas found in an unusual locale — perched more than 25 feet up a tree.
In a squirrel-like feat, the 70-pound dog named Luna managed to scale and get herself stuck in a pine tree near her Lotus, California, home after going missing on Sunday morning, according toKCRA 3.
Luna’s owner, Brian Spies, told the news outlet he grew concerned when the nearly 10-month-old canine didn’t return home after playing outside that morning. He and two friends searched for the dog in the area around his home for hours to no avail.
“We basically looked for her all day, driving around the mountain and calling for her,” Spies said. “We were worried that she was injured. She would be out all night in the cold, so that’s why we searched until dark.”
He was also worried about predators. “We have bears, mountain lions, coyotes, foxes … Yeah, we’ve kind of got them all,” he said. “So we didn’t know if a mountain lion snagged her or what.”
The following day, at around 10:30 a.m., one of Spies' friends, Luka Bogdanovich, happened to look up and spotted Luna sitting on a branch in a towering pine tree in a wooded area behind Spies' home.
“I’m just driving down the road and look left. I’ll be darned. I see something in the tree, and I went, ‘Holy cow, that’s the dog,'” Bogdanovich recalled with a laugh.
Spies, who works in construction, raced to the scene with a 24-foot extension ladder, climbing up the tool to rescue his dog. Bogdanovich and another friend held the ladder and a sleeping bag as a safety measure.
“I kind of reached up, grabbed her, and bear-hugged her and walked down the ladder with no hands, as carefully as possible,” Spies explained.
He suspects Luna may have been chasing a squirrel when she got into the potentially dangerous predicament. ‘[She probably] realized, ‘I made a ginormous mistake,’ " he said, adding that he imagines his dog has “learned her lesson” after the incident.
“It was an impressive climb, and how high she made it up,” he marveled.
Spies said Luna was worn out after her ordeal but is now back to her usual energetic self. Should she ever go missing again, her owner knows exactly where to look next time.
“We’ll look up because she can climb trees,” he said.
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“He was the runt of the litter. He did not learn his lesson. He’s been whining all morning trying to get out and get that squirrel,” she wrote.
In their post, the fire department made light of the fact that their team is more accustomed to rescuing cats stuck in trees. “Well, definitely not a cat in a tree,” they joked. “Perhaps he will not be so persistent, next time, in chasing squirrels.”
A local fire department in the neighboring state of Oregon also chimed in, commenting, “Well, that’s a new one we haven’t seen before ….”
source: people.com
