A Kentucky man who heard howling in the wind as he drove to work discovered it was his sister’s dog.
When Darrell Perkins followed the harrowing sound he found the pooch who had been missing for days helplessly stuck in the mud.
Perkins shared the dog’s rescue clip on Facebook that shows the petrified golden retriever unable to move her legs as a dog warden scales the muddy bank and carries the frightened animal to safety.
Perkins was heading to work Wednesday morning in Lawrence County when he followed the strange howls and found his sister’s pet Ginger stuck in sludge on the edge of a river with what appears to be a broken leg.
‘Well I certainly have had an eventful day what had happened is that my sister and brother-in-law’s little dog from next door has been missing since Friday and we just knew she was dead somewhere but this morning I was getting in my van to go to work and I hear a lot of howling it sounded like it was coming from the other side of the river but by knowing that Ginger was missing I thought I would investigate..’ Perkins wrote on Facebook.
‘…as I walked the River Bank I found Ginger stuck in the mud and in Creek Water next to the river she had been there since Friday I’m thankful that the river hadn’t raised a couple feet or she would have drowned I didn’t know what to do so I called my neighbor Mitchell McCoy and I called Johnny Rickman the dog warden for Lawrence County he came right away.
‘I could not have rescued the dog by myself the hill was too Steep and muddy and right against the river so with their help we got Ginger safely to the top and she is now at Tri-County Animal Clinic thank you Johnny and Mitchell for the rescue,’ he added.
Ginger went missing after her owner Brenda Osborne and her husband left the pup home alone with their three other dogs on the morning of Friday, April 20.
However when the couple returned home Sunday night, Ginger was nowhere to be found, according to WRAZ.
Neighbors and friends conducted a search for the dog but to no avail.
‘She’s the neighborhood dog; everybody loves her,’ Perkins who joined the search said.
However on Wednesday morning, Perkins followed the strange noise, hoping it might be his sister’s lost pup and found her on the edge of the river.
‘Once she saw me, she was fine. Then I sort of panicked. I knew I had to get her out of there,’ he said.
‘She wasn’t making any noise at all. We didn’t think she’d be down here,’ after he found her in the mud.
Perkins then called the county dog warden Johnny Rickman who is seen in the video clip picking up the dog and carrying him to safety.
Osborne said she was breathless when her brother called saying they had found Ginger, who she feared dead.
‘When he says, “Brenda I found Ginger,” I still thought somebody had happened to her till he says “And she’s alive, found her on the riverbank.” I just couldn’t believe it. I could get nothing done at work, believe me,’ she said to WSAZ.
Ginger was just a few months old when Osborne adopted the stray in 2006.
‘She’s like one of the grandkids I guess you’d say,’ Osborne said on the dog.
Although it’s not clear how the dog got there, if she had stayed there much longer and the water rose, she could have drowned.
Warden Rickman said on the rescue: ‘I didn’t think, I just put the harness on and went down and got her’.
‘It’s a miracle we got out in time,’ he added.
‘Just a miracle,’ Osborne echoed.
Since going to the clinic the dog is slowly healing but is yet to stand on her own.
‘UPDATE …Ginger is eating a little and drinking a little water this morning trying to stand up but can’t at this time. The Vet clinic is taking good care of her and giving her time to recover a little more before they put her through a lot of test….THANK YOU ALL FOR ALL THE LOVE FOR GINGER…..I will keep you updated,’ he wrote on Facebook.
