News...
                        sponsored by
 


Missing Iowa border collie found stuck in a tree

Send a link to a friend

[August 14, 2013]  DAVENPORT, Iowa (AP) -- A 7-year-old border collie who was missing from his Iowa home for a few days didn't get very far -- he only went up.

Laddy the dog was found Sunday morning stuck up a tree two blocks from his Davenport home, the Quad-City Times reported (http://bit.ly/16eQoa1).

"I asked where they found him, and the officer said, 'You'll never believe this,'" said his owner, Cynthia Weeks.

Ron Stevenson was working in the yard of his home when he heard a dog. He had previously heard the dog barking, but he didn't want to complain. However, something was different this time.

"I heard a whining, and I knew something wasn't right. This time, it sounded in distress," Stevenson said.

He followed the sound along his driveway and, counter-intuitively, looked up. There was the dog, at least 10 feet up in the tree.

"He was kind of shielded by leaves on the tree," Stevenson said of the dog, who he thinks maybe ran up the oak tree's gradually sloping trunk but then became too scared to run back down.

Stevenson told the newspaper that he called police and accepted one dispatcher's skepticism.

"They got here pretty fast, but I was getting impatient," he said. "I didn't know if the dog would bite me, but I just sort of shimmied up the tree. I grabbed him by the collar and sort of pulled him. I said, 'It's time for you to get out of this tree.'"

A responding police officer had seen fliers about Laddy and knew where the dog lived. He was reunited with Weeks a short time later.

Weeks said she believes Laddy escaped Friday from an invisible electronic fencing system, thanks to a non-working battery in his collar. She said his love for squirrels and chasing things probably led him up the tree. Despite a few abrasions on the pads of his feet, he's otherwise fine.

"He was pretty subdued when he got home," she said. "He's been doing a ton of sleeping."

___

Information from: Quad-City Times, http://www.qctimes.com/

[Associated Press]

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

< Top Stories index

Back to top