Stranger Than Fiction: South Carolina Firefighters Rescue a Dog Stuck Up a Tree

Since when do dogs climb trees? One catlike Dachshund was stuck for hours, and he's not talking about how he got there!

As the old bit of journalism wisdom goes: If a dog bites a man, it's not news, but if a man bites a dog, it is. In a similar vein, if a cat gets stuck in a tree, we're not going to write about it, but if a dog gets stuck in a tree, it's hard to resist.

Especially a cute little long-haired Dachshund.

Especially one who gets stuck in a tree in a cemetery at night.

Cappy and crew shortly after his rescue (Photo: Beaufort Gazette) Little Cappy's owner was frantic most of the night after she realized at 6 p.m. that Cappy was nowhere to be found. She searched everywhere, got friends involved, put out a call for help on Facebook. One of her friends saw her plea on Facebook around midnight, and felt terrible for Cappy's owner, Mimi Austin.

"I have four dogs of my own, and I wouldn't have been able to sleep if that was me," Kim Bonturi said in an article in the Beaufort Gazette. She grabbed her friend, a flashlight, and her golden retriever, and they eventually ended up at the Beaufort National Cemetery, near Austin's and Cappy's house.

As they explored, they started hearing barking. Austin, who was on the porch of her house, heard the familiar woofs and came running to join them. They checked and checked the brush and just couldn't find the little fella. I love this next line from the Beaufort Gazette article.

"The women started getting frustrated with searching in the dark, when two Beaufort police officers stopped by to see what three women, a dog and a car were doing in the rear of the cemetery."

That would be a little odd to see at around 1 a.m. The officers shined their powerful flashlights all about and finally located Cappy, who was sitting on a limb of a big oak, about 12 feet off the ground.

Their 8-foot ladder was no help, even with an officer's outstretched arms, so they called in the firefighters, who got their ladder right beside the dog. Before a firefighter plucked him out of the tree, Cappy covered his face with kisses. He must have been very grateful for the rescue.

How Cappy got up there is anyone's guess. One comment in the Gazette said that the only way he could get up there on his own would be to sit on an acorn and wait for it to grow. LOL! Chances are that didn't happen. What do you think? Could he have run up a big oak on his own if he got a really good running start? Could it have been some weird Twilight-Zone-like cemetery situation, where he kind of got beamed into the tree by a ghost? (What was the name of that episode with the cemetery? Night Call, right? Gives me shivers!) Or do you just think some creep put him up there?

The poor dog was so thirsty when he got down that he guzzled a big bowl of water. From now on, we hope Cappy keeps all four paws firmly planted on the ground. Well, maybe three. He can do a little rear-leg tree salute next time he passes by the oak that held him captive for so long.

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Looky Looky at What Dallas Firefighters Did to New Car with Two Dogs in the Trunk

Dallas firefighters didn't care that the Hyundai Sonata they pried open was new. They just wanted to get the dogs out of the trunk. (Photo: WFAA)

Leave your dogs in your trunk in Dallas, and don’t be surprised if your car looks like a roughly opened can of sardines when you come back. That’s the lesson John and Danika Shipman learned when Dallas Fire-Rescue pried open the trunk of their new Hyundai Sonata to get their two Yorkies out.

Joey and Eric, brothers-in-law who asked that their last names not be used, had passed by the car and heard barking. They traced it to the trunk, and  were worried about the condition of the dogs, and how long they’d been in there. So they called 911.

“If they had just been in the car, maybe with the windows down or something, I think they would have been okay,” Eric says. “But I felt the trunk was just very inhumane.”

Brothers-in-law Joey and Eric (who asked that their last names not be used) called 911 when they heard barking coming from the back of the car (Photo: WFAA)

Firefighters did what it took to open the trunk. And what it took was some serious prying. The Shipmans are not happy about their condition of their car. They say firefighters went too far, and are suing the city for $5,000 in repairs.

The Shipmans say that while all this was going on, they were enjoying lunch at a restaurant, celebrating John’s birthday. They say they had put their two Yorkies in the trunk to protect them. “I put them back there because I didn’t want them in the cabin, because [someone] will unlock the door,” John Shipman says. “Those pups cost about $1,000 each. I don’t want somebody to just reach in there and steal them.”

They say they left the back seat tilted forward a little for air, and that they love the dogs (all $2,000 worth of them) and would never do anything to harm them. Fortunately the temps were not bad — 61 degrees — and it was cloudy. The dogs appeared unharmed.

What do you think, Dogsters? Did firefighters do the right thing? Looks like the Shipmans won’t be putting any dogs in the trunk for quite some time. At least until their trunk gets repaired …

Danika and John Shipman are suing Dallas because of what firefighters did to get the dogs out of their trunk. (Photo: WFAA)

Update 9:30 a.m. PST 1-17-2012: Carma Poodle flagged us to a story on KTEN, which says John Shipman is now facing animal cruelty charges that come with a possible $10,000 fine.

The Shipmans say the dogs are like family; they sleep in their bed and sit with them on the couch. The dogs aren’t left behind for anything, he says. “The dogs come to work with me every day and I travel a lot with my work as well. They travel with me wherever I go,” John Shipman said. He maintains that the dogs were not truly in the trunk, but that the backseat was tipped forward adequately.

“The dogs were not locked in the trunk of the car. The person that was the so-called witness to it says he saw us lock them in the trunk of the car. Had that person maybe said, with two sentences, ‘Hey, did just lock your dogs in the trunk of the car?’ I would have been more than happy to say, ‘No, absolutely not. Come here, let me show you.”

(Source: WFAA, KTEN)

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