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Sept. 13--Rural/Metro firefighters rescued five beagle puppies from a irrigation pipe in the 3100 block of 5th Street on Sunday.
According to Charly McMurdie, public information officer for Rural/Metro, the owner of the property had set up a trap to catch the mother of the puppies after she attacked him last week. He finally caught her that morning.
McMurdie said it wasn't until he went to check the trap that he heard the litter of puppies and realized that they were inside an irrigation pipe near the back of his property.
"That is when he realized the momma dog attacked him because he got too close to the babies," McMurdie said. "We don't really know where the dog lived, but she did not belong to the property owner."
The property owner called the Humane Society of Yuma and Rural/Metro. The firefighters who responded to the scene, however, couldn't tell how far inside the pipe the puppies were.
"They were looking down the pipe but couldn't see them," McMurdie said. "They could hear them, though."
Eventually the firefighters, Capt. Curt Calaway, firefighter/EMT Derek Teeter and firefighter/EMT Sean Snyder taped a citrus picker to the top of a Pike pole and pulled one of the puppies from the pipe.
Since the puppies were about 25 feet inside the pipe, firefighters thought it would be easier, and safer, to cut a hole in the concrete pipe above them to get them out. However, before they could do so, McMurdie said they had to promise the property owner that they would repair the pipe afterwards, which they agreed to do.
Once the remaining four puppies were out, McMurdie said, they and their mother were turned over to the Humane Society to be checked out and cared for.
The firefighters repaired the irrigation pipe, just as they had promised. The Humane Society is closed on Mondays so no update on the puppies or mother beagle was available.
James Gilbert can be reached at [email protected] or 539-6854.
