When Jason Bousliman trekked 1 1/4 miles up the La Luz Trail in Albuquerque, New Mexico he didn’t imagine that he would be carrying an 80-pound dog on the way down.
But he did and ended up saving that dog’s life.
The rescue mission started when Cynthia Klaila was hiking the trail through the mountains on a hot day.
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She planned to do a five-mile trip up La Luz and was heading back down the trail when she heard some terrible cries from a struggling creature.
“It was in distress,” Cynthia Klaila told The Albequerque Journal. “It sounded like it was dying.”
Then she spotted what was making these terrible noises.
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“And then I saw her, this big fluffy white dog, down at the bottom of a ravine between the La Luz and Tramway trails,” she said.
The enormous fluffy dog appeared to be a Huskie mix weighing between 80 and 100 pounds. The poor thing was panting and shaking while she was lying on her side.
The dog had fallen 50 feet in a chasm of boulders, prickly pears, and brush.
Rattlesnakes are also known to roam this area and forest rangers had recently given a warning about an “aggressive” mountain lion in the area.
Even though storm clouds were moving in and thunder was rumbling, Klaila knew she had to help the husky dog.
“I just knew I wasn’t going to leave that dog to die alone,” she said.
The only problem was that she had to figure out how the heck she was going to do that.
Klaila carefully made her way down into the ravine.
She could see the poor doggo starring at her looking weary and weak.
When she reached her, she gave her some water that she had and tried to call both 911 or 311.
Her calls wouldn’t go through. Eventually, she was able to connect a call to her neighbor.
At this point, the dog’s owner returned with a bucket and two jugs of water.
Though he didn’t speak English, he and Klaila were still able to communicate and come together to create a gurney from their backpacks, a jacket, and bandana.
The idea was to hoist the dog back up the ravine in the gurney. Their contraptions, however, failed.
“The dog wasn’t having it,” she said.
So, Klaila decided to climb back up to the hill and get help as lighting flashed a few miles away.
Eventually, a man named Jason Bousliman came running along and stopped to help.
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“This dog was everything to him [the dog’s owner], but I could tell it was dying. Not long to live. So I thought, we have to get this dog up somehow,” Bousliman said.
Bousliman just grabbed the heavy dog up swung her over his shoulders and climbed back up the ravine with her.
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“It was the most amazing thing,” Klaila said. “It was like, ‘Oh, I’ll just carry this huge dog up this steep, rocky cliff, no problem.’”
After that, Bousliman continued to carry the heavy dog down the trail.
“Carrying Maya was about the hardest mile or so of my life but also the most rewarding,” Bousliman said. “I’ve run this portion of the trail 100-plus times and knew the excruciating energy getting her out would take. But she deserved to live and her owner didn’t deserve to see his dog die.”
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Bousilman brought the dog right to her owner’s car. Thankfully, because of the kindness of two strangers Maya, the injured dog, was able to continue her life with her very grateful owner.
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