A Dogged Rescue Effort

A quick-thinking puppy helped save another dog Thursday after her playmate fell 30 feet into the dark, cramped depths of an abandoned well.

Alerting a neighbor, who then called 911, the 7-month-old German shepherd mix stood by the well howling until firefighters arrived to lift the frightened pooch out.

“It was kind of like Lassie,” said Firefighter Bert Van Auker, 44, who was eventually lowered into the well to rescue the dog. “She alerted everyone. Her buddy could’ve been down there a long time without her help.”

The dogs, who curl up together each night, had spent the morning running and splashing in the Ventura River bed when they ventured onto a neighbor’s large property on Riverside Road.

But the frolicking stopped when 90-pound Bowdie, a 2-year-old, black Labrador retriever mix, hurtled 30 feet into concrete-lined darkness.

Sierra, the puppy, dug frantically. Paw-scratched trenches on either side of the well attest to her futile attempts to free her howling playmate.

Then she raced to the nearest house to plead for help.

Jayne Cooper was getting ready for a business meeting when she looked up to find a whimpering puppy on its hind legs peering through her kitchen window.

When she stepped outside, the dog led her directly to Bowdie.

“I moved the boards off the well and saw a dog way down inside,” said Cooper, who lives only about 30 yards from the well. “I don’t know how she got down there, but it was quite a fall.”

Cooper stuck a ladder in the well, but Bowdie wouldn’t budge. Then Cooper called 911.

The Ventura County Fire Department arrived moments later at about 9:30 a.m., surveyed the scene and called in a search-and-rescue team.

“Any well that old and abandoned is precarious,” Capt. Ken Cochran said. “It was obvious that we needed specialists.”

Cochran, a 25-year veteran, couldn’t remember another rescue in an abandoned Ventura County well. He added that the well would be secured before his firefighters had left.

“This could easily have been a child,” Cochran said.

County regulations require that abandoned wells be sealed with concrete to prevent accidents and contamination of ground water, said Lowell Preston, manager of water resources for Ventura County. He estimates that as many as 800 abandoned wells in the county have not been properly sealed.

In Oak View, Sierra nervously paced around the well until an animal-control officer moved her away from the rescue scene to the safe confines of a truck. Her desperate whines kept constant rhythm with Bowdie’s loud, frantic barks from the clammy well.

But as firefighters prepared to lower Van Auker into the well, the barking stopped.

Bowdie was running out of oxygen. Fresh air was immediately pumped into the well, and the barking resumed.

Then the owner of Sierra and Bowdie arrived on the scene, racing from work when she heard about her dog’s plight.

“I just want him to be all right,” said a teary Stephanie Whetsell, 22. “That’s my boy.”

Whetsell, who lives nearby, said the dogs had a habit of escaping from her yard.

“I’m going to build a wooden fence to keep them in,” she said.

Wrapped in ropes, Van Auker made his way down to a wet dog.

“She must have fallen through some boards because she was perched on pieces of wood jammed against the sides,” Van Auker said. The water, which was several feet deep, “was muddy and real cold. The dog was shivering.”

The well, 3 feet in diameter, was so tight that Bowdie’s snout and tail were touching the walls. Although silent, the place was loaded with frogs, Van Auker said.

Bowdie was docile, but big, and it took Van Auker several minutes to put a harness and muzzle on her.

But minutes before noon, Bowdie and rescuer were bathed in sunlight.

A tail-wagging Bowdie was jumping all over Whetsell and rubbing wet noses with the puppy that helped save his life.

“They’re best friends,” Whetsell said.