Puppy Named Sierra Saves Doggoned Day

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

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

“It was kind of like Lassie,” said firefighter Bert Van Auker, a seven-year veteran 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 property on Riverside Road.

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

Sierra, the puppy, dug frantically. A pair of one-foot-deep, paw-scratched trenches on both sides of the well attest to futile attempts at freeing her howling playmate.

Then she raced to the nearest house 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 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 didn’t budge. Then Cooper called 911.

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

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

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

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

Sierra nervously paced around the well until an animal control officer moved her away from the rescue scene to the 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 pumped into the well, and the barking resumed.

Then Sierra and Bowdie’s owner 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 Bowdie.

“She must have fallen through some boards because she was perched on some pieces of wood jammed against the sides,” Van Auker said. “I don’t know how deep the water was, but it was muddy and real cold. The dog was shivering.”

The well’s three-foot diameter was so tight that Bowdie’s snout and tail were touching the walls.

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

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

A tail-wagging Bowdie jumped all over Whetsell and rubbed noses with the puppy that helped save his life.

“They’re best friends,” Whetsell said.