Posted on 04/09/2011 7:19:40 AM PDT by JoeProBono
A Bernese mountain dog that spent two weeks lost in the North Shore Mountains near Vancouver was rescued yesterday by a helicopter team from a cliff ledge east of Grouse Mountain.
A hiker spotted Hurley on Thursday near Mosquito Creek and owner Darwin Schandor hired the North Shore Rescue team to bring him home.
Tim Jones, the team's search manager said the rescue turned out to be more complicated than they originally anticipated.
"The dog was well below originally where we thought. We spotted it on a ledge and it was trapped. It couldn't move off this ledge," said Jones.
So the team took advantage of the situation to practice a complicated helicopter rescue technique that involves lowering rescuers by a long cable down to the ground.
"We did our 200-foot long-line rescue. Mike and Jeff — I sent them in with the dog harness and within about 10 minutes they coaxed the dog into the harness and the rest is history, the dog is back with the family," he said.
Owner Darwin Schandor says his family was thrilled to get Hurley back.
"When they brought us over, he ran over to me and I and I've never been licked so much in my life, but I was really speechless," he said.
Hurley, who normally weighs about 50 kg, dropped nearly 10 kg in the two weeks he was gone, but is otherwise doing well, said Schandor.
"I've got my family back together — a wonderful feeling — a little exhausted because it's been 14 days of pounding the North Shore Mountains to find him, but the whole time we've had unbelievable community drive behind us and with us,"
Schandor says Hurley really brought the community together with hundreds of people helping to search and nearly 100,000 hits on his Facebook page
Little confused about the coat, thought pembrokes had short coats, but that one seems a little fuzzy. Cardigan? I thought they looked a little different in the face tho. Adorable tho.
Oh, I should have read further. Is that a pembroke then?
Yup, Pembrokes all.
Your new baby is getting big!
So cute. We had a little corgi mix years and years ago. He was bigger than a corgi (and maybe he wasn’t corgi at all, but the shelter called him a corgi mix, and he did look like maybe a sheltie x corgi). I always thought perhaps down the road when I was not up to my big dogs a corgi for us, but not where we live now as I don’t have a fenced yard. I think they might be dashers. :)
Great photos. Adorable dogs. :)
This is another of Milo.
Yes, we live in a small house here, with a small unfenced back yard (has hedges, it’s really contained, but they could scoot out the hedge). My golden doesn’t run off and is good off leash, but I wouldn’t trust a small dog not to think, “you know, there might be something cool on the other side of that hedge” and there’s no way I could get over there before they could be gone.
But, when we retire and get out of here, that’s one breed I would seriously love to consider. Heck, who knows, maybe my husband would even let me have a couple of sheep to herd... ;)
The SECOND sentence reads (I cut and paste for those incapable of reading more than one sentence at a time)
A hiker spotted Hurley on Thursday near Mosquito Creek and owner Darwin Schandor hired the North Shore Rescue team to bring him home.
Some people...
“mountain climbing, no doubt”
Not very good at it, obviously.
At least I’m not hijacking the thread. ;-)
.JPG )
Grouse Mountain
Ever tried flyball?
Thanks for the gif, JoePB!!!
;-{)
No, I had never heard of it. I "dogpiled" it. Very interesting, thanks. I'm sure we will never do all that... and those other dogs should feel thankful for that, Dagny is something, of course I'm as biased as they come.
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