The sound of barking underneath a street led a team of city workers to a dog trapped in a narrow culvert, and you might say they used a backwards approach to rescue the mutt. The sickly, scared dog was about 50 feet from the nearest entry point, and at just 15 inches in diameter, the workers couldn't fit into the culvert themselves. Not even offers of food could draw out the dog.
"He was exhausted," said Tony Talamantez, a public works foreman. Then Talamantez and his colleagues struck an idea. They rigged up a long video camera used to inspect drain pipes, approaching the dog from the back and nudging him dog forward until he reached an entry point big enough for a person to pull him out.
The camera recorded the rescue, showing the dog scampering ahead in fits and starts as the camera pokes him in the rear end. The dog wore no tags, only a worn collar. But Julia Gosen, animal control officer for the city, said the dog's owner saw accounts of the rescue in local media and claimed him Wednesday morning.
The owner "had no idea how he ended up" in the drain, Gosen said. "He said he'd gone missing from their house about a day earlier." City workers weren't sure how the dog, who Gosen learned is a 13-year-old lab named Max, got into the sewer.
They said cats, raccoons and ducks often end up in storm sewers, but Talamantez said it was the first time he'd helped rescue a dog in his 25 years with the city. The sound of barking underneath a street led a team of city workers to a dog trapped in a narrow culvert, and you might say they used a backwards approach to rescue the mutt.
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