Two men exploring the caves with their families 500 feet below ground discovered the missing pup, and brought her back up to safety.
Two explorers rescued a dog from a Missouri cave after she was trapped there for as long as two months.
Gerry Keene and his friend Rick Haley were exploring the cave with their kids 500 feet below ground when someone heard the missing pup.
“They report back, ‘Dad, there’s a dog here.’ We did not believe them,” Keene said.
Abby, a poodle mix, was skinny and listless, but alive.
“She was not looking real healthy. We thought her back might be broken or something, just not in good shape,” Keene said.
But the two men were determined to carry her up to safety.
“When you initially go into the cave, you’re going in about a 2’ by 2’ hole, so there’s this little teeny crawl hole that goes for maybe 10 feet,” Keene said.
They put Abby in a bag while navigating the narrow passages.
“Basically, I would go first. Rick would hand the pup up to me. I would then put her on a ledge or something, make sure she doesn’t fall. Rick would then climb up, take over. I climb up further, and we’re just handing her over. I think she totally understood that we were helping her,” Keene said.
Abby's owners say she ran off back in June and may have been swept into the cave by flood waters. They had just about given up hope they would ever see her again.
“As days went on, we figured probably with her age, we didn’t know if she died or got hit by a vehicle,” one of her owners said.
“I guess that was the worst fear, that she would be suffering,” her other owner said.
Once skin and bones, Abby is now bouncing back. The owners are thankful that the men rescued the pup just in time.
