Tag: Lucy

News Reporter Rescues Dog Stolen from Restaurant

Stopping for lunch near Houston on their way home from a road trip last weekend, Andrew Mathias and his family tied their 4-year-old Golden Retriever, Lucy, to a tree in the restaurant’s parking lot. They assumed she’d be safe and cool in this shady spot.

They were sadly mistaken. When they left the restaurant, Lucy was gone. A surveillance camera captured footage of a woman untying Lucy, taking her to a truck and then driving away.

After viewing the footage, Matt Dougherty, a reporter with CBS affiliate station KHOU in Houston, decided to do his best to find Lucy.

Fortunately, the truck’s license plate was visible in the footage. Dougherty was able to get the truck owner’s address and, accompanied by a KHOU news crew, went to her home in New Caney, Texas.

There were a lot of dogs on the property. When Dougherty asked the man who answered the door if there was a woman there “who collects dogs,” the man said she was his cousin.

Dougherty and the news crew took Lucy and contacted authorities. The reporter also made a FaceTime video phone call to Mathias.

“Well, I don’t want to bury the lead — I’ll go ahead and let you know,” Dougherty told him. “We’ve got somebody in the back seat with us.” Mathias and his family were thrilled when they saw it was Lucy.

Later, as Polk County Pct. 2 Constable Bill Cunningham watched, Lucy was reunited with her overjoyed family.

Mathias told KHOU he’ll never leave Lucy unattended in public again.

Perhaps the dognapper’s heart was in the right place: She thought Lucy had been abandoned outside the restaurant, her two children who were inside the truck at the time told KHOU in a follow-up story.

Lucy “was looking confused,” a 13-year-old boy told KHOU. There was “a lot of saliva coming out of her mouth, so we thought oh, she’s super thirsty.” (The Mathias family said they had left a bowl filled with water next to their dog.)

The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office is investigating the case. The woman and her children hope the Mathias family will forgive them. “We’re so sorry if you guys thought that we stole it,” the boy told KHOU. “We didn’t do it for bad intentions. We did it for a good cause, because we thought it was abandoned.”

Here’s some advice for this woman and anyone else who sees a dog in a similar situation: It’s a good idea to check inside the restaurant first to see if the owner is there before taking any action.

Photos: KHOU 11/YouTube

Luc(k)y the Welsh Terrier Survives 30-foot Fall into Well

A 13-year-old Welsh Terrier named Lucy (her owners might want to consider adding a “k” to her name) should be the poster dog for why you should always keep your dog on a leash when you’re hiking together.

Lucy was not leashed on a hike with her owners yesterday morning in the hills of Malibu, Calif. She wandered off the trail and fell into a dirt well that’s 30 feet deep and only 2 feet wide at the bottom.

Amazingly, Lucky — er, Lucy — was not injured in the fall. The Los Angeles County Fire Department’s Urban Search and Rescue team (USAR) was dispatched to the scene, but it took them two hours to get there due to traffic. (Hey, it’s L.A., after all.)

When they finally made their way to the well, the rescue took another two hours.

“We set up an Arizona Vortex, which is a three-legged artificial high point,” Matt Walmsley, who was lowered by rope into the well to rescue Lucy, told KABC. “And that allows me to come out of the hole clean. We put on a safety rope and a main rope, and I went down with a strap that I have in my pocket here. I got it around the dog, and stood her up and got her in my arms, and up we came.”

The Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority also helped with Lucy’s rescue, which was recorded on video.

Lucy is now safely back home with her owners, who, I bet, will never, ever let her roam off leash again.

Photo via Twitter

Dachshund Rescued after Spending 13 Days under Concrete Slab

“It really is a miracle that God gave me back Lucy right before her birthday, and if she could talk, we’d be able to write a book about it,” Rebecca Felix, the 4-year-old miniature Dachshund’s dog mom, told the Wichita Eagle today.

Earlier this month, Felix left her home in Derby, Kansas, to take care of an ill family member. Her husband stayed at home with Lucy and Thor, their Jack Russell Terrier/Chihuahua mix.

When her husband came home from work April 3, Lucy was nowhere to be found. There were no holes under the fence through which Lucy could have escaped.

“I was devastated,” Felix told the Wichita Eagle. “Our assumption was that she got out, but we couldn’t find anywhere where she could have gotten out.”

For 10 days, the couple circled their yard, calling Lucy’s name but getting no response. Then Thor began leading them to the air-conditioning unit on the side of the house. The couple couldn’t figure out why.

Three days later, they heard a soft bark coming from under the concrete slab supporting the unit. When Felix’s husband played a dog-whistle app on his phone, they heard another weak bark.

Digging under the slab, Felix’s husband was able to see Lucy’s nose. She opened her eyes when he called her name.

The Dachshund had dug under the house, and then had somehow managed to dig a 4-foot tunnel before she became stuck under the concrete slab.

Firefighters and police officers soon arrived and were able to pull Lucy out. Veterinarians at a local animal emergency hospital said she was dehydrated and starved, and had severe corneal ulceration due to all the dirt that had been in her eyes. She was fed chicken and rice, which she ate “ravenously,” according to the Wichita Eagle.

Lucy is recovering and being treated by vets at Rainbow Valley Veterinary Clinic. “We can’t believe there was no organ failure,” Dr. Kelly Miller told the Wichita Eagle. “Fourteen days without water, you expect the kidneys to have not survived through that. She somehow managed to make it. It’s amazing.”

Felix agrees. “It had to be divine intervention,” she told the Wichita Eagle.

Photo via Twitter

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