Peeking Pup Pilloried by Hole in Wall
Officers save dog with head stuck in brick wall
Zoe Staff Report
Rebel wasn’t staging a rebellion. Quite the opposite: he couldn’t have been more cooperative, according to the two officers who rescued him.
The 8-month-old German shepherd pup was just plain stuck, with his head peering through one side of the 18-inch-thick brick wall, and the rest of him on the other side.
“My initial reaction was, ‘Wow, how’d he get in there?’” said Riverside County (Calif.) Animal Services Sgt. James Huffman. “And why is there a hole that big in the wall?”
Rebel’s person wasn’t home when he got stuck, but her friend was, and she called animal services for help.
Sgt. Huffman and Officer Hector Palafox checked the dog’s breathing and determined that he was not in serious danger.
“Somehow he got in through there, so we knew we could get him out,” said Huffman. “But our main concern was not hurting him in doing so.”
The officers decided there was enough room to rescue Rebel without having to break down the wall (which could further endanger the dog). So one of the pair worked Rebel’s head from one side of the wall, while the other worked his body on the other side.
Some minor nudging and roughly 30 minutes into the rescue, Rebel was free. Huffman and Palafox said they knew Rebel was working with them and that he understood they were trying to help him.
“He let us know if we were pushing too hard – but he kept working right along with us,” Huffman said. “He helped a lot. You could see his hind legs stiffen to assist in the direction we were going. He knew we were there to save him.”
Huffman added that he planned on stopping by the next day to discuss covering the hole with chicken wire to prevent another accident.