Buddy’s owners are well aware that their 7-year-old coonhound is quite the talented escape artist – and his sneaky skills have started to rub off on his little sister, 2-year-old Gidget, an English mastiff.
Buddy recently escaped, with his little sister not too far behind, but this time, there was going to be a seriously hard – and stinky – lesson to learn.
Mandi Smith is used to her dogs roaming around. Her neighbors know who they are and they usually come back after a few minutes, but this time – something was different.
“Usually they come back, but they didn’t come back that night,” Mandi told The Dodo. “The next morning, we see Buddy, and he’s out running amok and he’s wet, so we decided to take a trip down to the reservoir … and we called for [Gidget], but we couldn’t find her anywhere.”
As it turns out, their evening adventure hadn’t taken them to the reservoir. Instead, they were at a wastewater treatment facility 6 miles away in Pueblo West, Colorado.
Not only did the two dogs sneak their way into the treatment facility, but they had found themselves in big trouble. That morning, a worker at the facility named Tony Campbell heard barks coming from a sewage treatment pond. It was Gidget.
Tony walked over to the sewage treatment pond and saw the mastiff trying her best to keep her head above the disgusting muck of sewage – it was obvious that she was exhausted. She had been stuck there for over an hour.
“I’m pretty sure the hound dog decided to jump in and take a swim and Gidget followed suit,” Tony said. “She’s like an 8-year-old kid, she’s got that mentality — happy-go-lucky, ‘I’m doing what you’re doing,’ ‘You’re jumping, I’m jumping.’”
Tony had seen Buddy pacing back and forth, worried about his sister, but when he had stepped closer to Gidget – Buddy had taken off.
Knowing that Gidget was in serious danger, Tony called the fire department for assistance. Due to the aeration process in the tank, anything that would fall into it would soon sink to the bottom.
“When we got there, we found out she was in an aeration pond of wastewater fluids that runs about 17 feet deep and holds about 1.5 million gallons,” Brad Davidson, Pueblo West Fire division chief, told The Dodo. “There was a little walkout area where plant facility staff can go and test the water, and this dog was stranded underneath this concrete wall, kind of perched up on the wall, but stuck.”
Given Gidget’s predicament – removing her was going to be far from pleasant.
“My understanding is this pond is either step one or step two of the raw sewage coming in,” Brad said.
The fire crew suited up in full-body protective gear and made their way to rescue the stuck dog. They were able to secure a catch pole around her and lower a ladder into the pond.
“We kind of coached and urged the dog to come over, and she came up the ladder kind of on her own,” Brad said. “We had to help her get within arm’s reach, and then the guys grabbed her to get her up out of the wastewater.”
After getting Gidget out of the raw sewage pond, the fire crew rinsed her off and waited for the Humane Society of the Pikes Peak Region. She was exhausted and very, very stinky.
The all-too-curious dog needed two decontamination baths and a medical exam, but she was otherwise good to go home, although there was a lingering smell. She couldn’t have been happier when she saw Mandi’s 16-year-old son Henry to pick her up and take her home.
Both dogs are safely back with their family, but days later, both dogs still have a smelly lingering odor, reminding them of the yucky predicament they put themselves in.
“She’s still got some odor and I think it’s going to be there for a while,” Mandi said. “She’s had numerous baths, but she sat in it for such a duration, that it’s going to be few more weeks yet before it goes away.”
Their story has gone viral and hopefully, the two adventurous dogs have learned their lesson to just stay home.
“What a poopy day,” Mandi added. “Literally.”
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