Firefighters Rescue German Shepherd That Chased Cat Up A Tree
LATHROP (CBS13) — It's the type of 911 call dog owner Sharon Thurston says she never expected to make.
"I was so scared. Like that dog is my baby, like she's everything to me," Thurston said.
On Saturday, Thurston says she took her two-year-old German Shepherd "Baby" off her leash for just a few minutes when she ran off.
Moments later, Thurston heard Baby barking and realized her pooch had gotten into a precarious position.
Swipe through pictures of the rescue below:
"I looked up and was like, 'Oh my gosh, she's going to fall,'" she said.
It turns out, Baby booked it up a branch in pursuit of cat.
"I called all my neighbors and was like, 'Guys help me' you know? And somebody suggested I called the fire department," Thurston said.
As soon as firefighters got that call, they couldn't believe it.
"I took a chuckle and thought, 'Well this is a first,' and I immediately placed a phone call to find out if somebody was kidding with me," Larry Madoski said.
When firefighter Marty Ortiz arrived, he immediately took action.
"It's not your typical everyday call. I think in my 10 years of experience of being in fire/EMS, that's the first I heard of a dog in a tree," Ortiz said. "You can see a full grown German Shepherd perched a top a large tree and you can see the cat at the end of the limb, and they were still interacting with each other.
Ortiz said firefighters got a ladder up to the tree and he made his way up, grabbing Baby's leash, which was tangled on a limb. As soon as he removed the dog from the branch, she was returned to her owner.
"The cat got down by itself. It's still running around here antagonizing her everyday," Thurston said. "[Baby's] fantastic now. She's back to herself."
Firefighters say this is a rare rescue that allowed them to use a "fido bag," which contains a dog bowl for water.