It never fails to warm my heart when I see people making great efforts to help animals who are in danger. We have read countless stories of police officers and state troopers going beyond their duties to help.
This was certainly the case for one officer who crawled his way into a drainage pipe to save a lost and scared dog.
Golden retriever Lilah, who was 13 years old at the time, was reported missing from her home in Conklin, situated in upstate New York. A few days later, Lilah’s owner, Rudy Fuehrer, discovered her in an unusual location while walking his other dogs.
When he heard a yelp coming from a culvert pipe next to his house, he immediately understood that it was his lost dog.
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“I said, ‘Oh my God, that’s Lilah!'” he told the AP.
When the dog was finally located, it wasn’t easy to get her to safety. The scared dog could not be lured out with food, so Randy contacted the police for help.
Trooper “Jimmy” Rasaphone and his partner Trooper Ana Reynas from New York State Police arrived on the scene. They realized that one of them would have to travel into the pipe — a very tight fit, with a diameter of fewer than 2 feet.
Trooper Rasaphone, the smallest of the responding officers, knew he was the man for the job. He traveled 15 feet down into the narrow pipe, no easy task, but worth it to save the lost golden retriever.
“Randy recalled to the AP, he crouched down and disappeared into the hole with a lead that had a choker on it,” Randy recalled to the AP. “He somehow manipulated his arms and got the choker around the dog’s head.”
Thankfully, he was able to rescue Lilah and bring her to safety. She was shaken and soaked in water but otherwise unharmed.
Facebook/New York State Police
The department would like to thank Trooper Rasaphone for going above and beyond in their efforts to save the dog. The uplifting rescue has gone viral on the web.
“Troopers, thank you for going above and beyond and showing compassion to help get this pup back home to her owner,” a Facebook post reads.
Meanwhile, Randy says that Lilah has fully recovered from the experience and that he will keep her on a leash from this point on.
We are grateful to Trooper Rasaphone for putting himself in such a dangerous situation to save this terrible dog. We are happy that Lilah has been found and is now in good health.
This week, a dog in another state made headlines after getting stuck in a drain pipe, and it was a coincidence that both dogs made the news. According to KTIV out of Sioux City, Iowa, Tupelo, a bulldog who lived in Estherville, Iowa, didn’t return after he needed to go outside, and his owner heard him yelping for help from inside a drain pipe in a hole next to their house, which the news station reported.
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