Canine friend leads to dog’s safe recovery after 6 days
Published: July 10, 2006
Frank and Frida may stand barely a foot off the ground, but don’t be fooled. They have the hearts of lions.
Frank, short for Frankfurter, and Frida are dachshunds that belong to Mindy Hallene of Moline. They especially enjoy exploring their wooded yard and chasing animals through the underbrush.
Ms. Hallene said the dogs have been known to chase groundhogs, opossums and even large raccoons in the past. She attributes their fearlessness to the fact that dachshunds were first bred in Germany to fight badgers.
“These dogs are really tough,” she said.
She recently found out just how tough they are. After playing outside one late June afternoon, Frank didn’t return to the house. Ms. Hallene and her sons, Jimmy, Bryan and Alex, were searching until 4 a.m., but Frank was nowhere to be found.
The family then enlisted the help of friends and neighbors, and put up reward posters all over Moline. But for six days, they had heard nothing.
“We were all just wrecks the whole week, thinking he was dead,” Ms. Hallene said.
Frida was no exception. She was, Ms. Hallene said, inconsolable. She escaped the house at every opportunity, and kept running into the ravine behind the house and barking.
The little dog came back with her paws and chest raw from digging, and had to be taken to the vet to have her paws lanced.
Then, as the family was leaving for a weekend trip to Wisconsin, Frida jumped out of the car, ran down the ravine and dove into a hole.
“I heard one bark and then a little whimper, and I thought ‘oh my God, there’s two dogs in there,’ ” Ms. Hallene said.
Frida apparently had been trying all along to rescue Frank, who was trapped in what appeared to be a raccoon hole that had collapsed, leaving him stuck between two boards.
The family called Falcon’s Nest Chimney Sweeps for help freeing Frank. A few days before owner Earl Bunch had checked a hole close to the house for the dog, using special cameras he uses to examine chimneys.
Mr. Bunch said he often gets called to rescue wild animals from chimneys and pets from trees, but this was the first dog he’d ever rescued. He and Ms. Hallene’s sons cleared away the brush and debris until Frank was freed.
Despite being trapped for nearly a week, Frank didn’t look any worse for the wear. Dr. Tom Grainer, a veterinarian at Oak Knoll Animal Hospital in Moline, examined the dog and said the only thing wrong was a spot on his stomach had been rubbed raw where he had been pinned between the boards.
“He looked great for having been gone a week,” Dr. Grainer said. “Lost dogs usually come through much worse.”
Ms. Halline said apart from the raw spot on his stomach, a few bug bites and having lost a few pounds, Frank is good as new, and perhaps a little wiser.
“He’s been staying close to the house ever since,” she said.
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