A dog named Hero lives up to his name and leads rescuers to his owner
CBC
For two days, a 61-year-old man in the southern Alberta town of Taber was stuck in a muddy ditch. Had it not been for his dog, officials say the man might have been there for much longer.
"It could have been a missing persons investigation that was reported to us," said Const. Austin Weersink with the Taber Police Service.
Instead, Hero, the man's Akita breed pet dog, led Weersink and emergency crews to where his owner had been stuck — far out of clear sight from the road, behind thick brush and grass and unable to move.
Police believe the 61-year-old man slipped and fell while walking his dog in the area, a location him and Hero both frequent.
Earlier that morning, police say they received a call about a large dog that was on the loose just north of the sugar refinery located in Taber, a town about 270 kilometres southeast of Calgary.
But when officers arrived to follow up, they couldn't locate the dog.
A few hours later, Taber police received another call regarding the same area. This time, it was a man who explained that him and his dog had been attacked by a large dog.
The dog who was responsible for the attack was Hero, Taber police said in a post to Facebook.
Weersink says he eventually found the dog and whistled to get Hero's attention.
Then, the police officer says he heard a loud cry for help.
"I looked to my left where the individual who had been attacked was sitting in his vehicle, but his window was [rolled] up," he said. "So I whistled again, and the shriek came again and said, 'Help, I'm down here.'"
Weersink called for Hero to be taken under control, then walked over to where he heard the scream coming from, which is where he found the 61-year-old man lying on his back.
"The tall grass ... the vision line from any sort of roadway, it's extremely tough to see someone in there," said the police officer.
The man was rescued from the ditch and taken to the Chinook Regional Hospital in Lethbridge, Alta., after the incident.
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