The Deseret Morning News (Salt Lake City)
KUNA, Idaho — A dog that leaped from a 90-foot precipice along southwestern Idaho’s Snake River Canyon was saved by firefighters, surviving the plunge with a broken hind leg and scrapes.
Bill Rice, the owner of the 2-year-old female border collie named Shelby, told firefighters that he’d turned to look at his grandkids while at Dedication Point, a popular raptor viewing area in the Snake River Birds of Prey National Conservation Area. Seconds later, Shelby was leaping over a low wall and into the chasm, he told them.
“We thought the dog’s back was broken,” Dee Dee Bowring, a kennel supervisor at the Idaho Humane Society who helped with the rescue, told the Idaho Statesman Friday. “This dog is very lucky to escape with one broken bone. It’s a happy ending, which is what we like.”
Rice clambered down the steep and rocky wall above the Snake River to the dog. Bowring and Animal Control Supervisor Morris McCall opted to call in firefighters from Kuna to help rescue the dog.
“I don’t know if it was trying to find out what was on the other side, or what,” McCall said, on why Shelby jumped. “It jumped over, and there was nothing but air.”
Kuna Fire Capt. Doug Newcomb said firefighters from his agency helped in a similar dog rescue at nearly the same spot four years ago. In that case, the dog survived without injury.
Shelby wasn’t so lucky and must undergo surgery for her broken leg early next week.
Veterinarian Jeff Rosenthal, the Humane Society’s executive director, will perform the surgery free of charge.
Witnesses said the 42-pound dog remained calm as a firefighter and Rice secured the animal to a backboard with duct tape before two people at the top of the canyon pulled her up.
“She was licking the fireman’s face when they were down there,” Bowring said. “She was in pain, but I think she knew they were there to help her.”
Copyright 2008 The Deseret News Publishing Co.