She had been missing for more than a week.
Lucky, a three-legged Australian cattledog, had been missing for over a week when Colleen Bell finally spotted her. The dog was walking down an alley between some run-down row houses. Bell, founder of GoodBoy Dog Recovery, hoped Lucky would follow the scent of food right into a trap Bell had set.
Instead, the dog disappeared behind the row houses. Then, Bell heard yelping from inside the boarded-up buildings.
“Some of [the houses] are abandoned and slated for demolition,” Bell told The Dodo, “Because they’ve, like, collapsed inside of themselves.”
Peering into the basement window of the boarded-up row house, Bell saw Lucky looking up at her from deep within a pile of rubble.
The row house had no floors and no back wall, which made it easy for Lucky to wander in, but very difficult to get her out.
“It’s … such rough terrain,” Bell said. “I can’t even believe she went down in there. But she climbed over all this trash and then just fell down into what was the basement.”
Bell was thrilled to find the elusive dog, but worried she wouldn’t be able to navigate the debris on only three legs.
Plus, that area, near Chester, Pennsylvania, didn’t have animal control services. The local police said they couldn’t dispatch the fire department because the building was condemned and therefore unsafe for firefighters.
Bell, who’s been on a mission to recover missing dogs for 12 years, refused to give up on Lucky. She rallied her own rescue team.
“I called my brother, my cousin and a friend of mine,” she said. “I went and got some plywood and some two-by-fours.”
As Lucky barked from inside the collapsed row house, Bell’s team built a 24-foot wooden ramp as quickly as possible and slid it into the basement window — the only safe point of entry into the home. Her friend, who asked to remain anonymous, lay on his back and wriggled into the row house.
At only 10 months old, Lucky was terrified of the strangers trying to get to her. She growled as Bell and her team debated the best way to reach her.
“She was, like, another 5 to 6 feet down in a hole, totally stuck,” Bell said.
After careful maneuvering, Bell’s crew managed to use a makeshift pulley system to get Lucky up and out. Finally safe inside Bell’s car, the pup’s demeanor completely changed.
“She was a sweetheart,” Bell said. “She was just looking over at me. Her tail was wagging in the car. She was just so thrilled to be rescued.”
Bell scanned Lucky for a microchip, which led her to a family living a few miles away, who missed their puppy. They had adopted Lucky from a local shelter and were thrilled to have their dog back home.
Lucky’s giant smile and frenetic tail wags upon seeing her family suggest that she was just as happy to be back.