A dog trapped in an abandoned well under a Texas home for several days was rescued last week after the man renting the house heard faint barking coming through his floorboards, according to officials.
The stray basset hound mix was likely wandering under the Longview house when he plunged 12 feet into the empty hole, leading to his desperate series of whimpers that the renter initially thought were coming from a dog in a nearby house.
“He realized it wasn’t coming from outside; it was actually coming from below,” Jenna George, the executive director for Longview Animal Care and Adoption Center, told the Washington Post this week.
Longview Animal Care and Adoption Center
The man called animal control, which promptly arrived on Feb. 24 to figure out where the dog might be.
Animal control officer Bobby Jumper spotted an opening on the side of the home and started crawling under the aboveground duplex.
As he followed the sound of worried woofs, he finally found the pitiful pup who soon perked up, the newspaper reported.
“He was about as happy as could be to see me,” Jumper told the paper.
Eight rescuers from the animal shelter and local fire department also crammed their bodies under the house and used “makeshift slings” to retrieve the dog, Longview Fire Department Lt. James Parker told WaPo.
The pouch was eventually pulled to safety about three hours later and named Timmy in reference to the classic television show “Lassie.”
It’s believed the dog was in the well for several days or possibly longer.
“The dog just came straight up, unscathed from the lift,” Jumper told the newspaper. “It was an amazing feeling to get the dog out.”
The well was also filled following the rescue to avoid a similar fate for other erstwhile animals.
Timmy, estimated to be 2 years old, was adopted three days later by a woman in Dallas.
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