A plea for help on a Facebook page about a scared puppy trapped in a drainage pipe Saturday brought out more than a dozen Gilroy residents, including two brave women who crawled through a dark, spider-filled, cramped pipe and rescued the dog.
“There’s so much bad news out there, we wanted to share some good news,” said Toni Morris, a Coldwell Banker Realtor who posted the plea on the Lost and Found Pets of South County Facebook page.
Her friend had spotted the dog weeks before but couldn’t catch it or find it again. Then, Saturday, she spotted it, but couldn’t get it out of the pipe. Moments after Morris posted, more than a dozen people showed up to help, including Laura Gonzalez, 21, who crawled the length of the drainage pipe under Buena Vista Avenue between No Name Uno Road and Marcella Avenue to push the pup out.
“I felt pain for the dog and I just had to go inside and help,” said Gonzalez, who is studying to be a veterinarian at Evergreen College and who regularly travels to her native Colombia to rescue animals. The trouble is, she’s claustrophobic—so claustrophobic that when she attends concerts she has to go into the bathroom to calm down and get away from the crowd.
“The pipe was small, I could barely fit,” she said. “I was crawling and I i didn’t have space to move my shoulders. I was really having a hard time breathing. The dog was smelling me. She was making sure I was OK. That’s really nice. She licked my hand twice. I took a deep breath and kept going. The first time I went in I had to stop and go back out and breathe a little.
“I was covered in poop and mud. I had mud all over my face. My boyfriend was showering me outside the house because I smelled so bad.”
Margo Clonts, 14, crawled into the pipe from the other end, grabbing the dog from Gonzalez. The dog was running back and forth between the rescuers for a while, taking treats from their hands.
Jenny Mosher, a mother of three who has a Labrador Retriever, fell in love the the puppy and adopted her. The vet told her the dog is a mix of Doberman and Lab, probably 4 to 6 months old and at 25 pounds, 10 pounds lighter than it should be.
Mosher’s daughter, Addy, 7, named the dog Clutch, to go with their other dog, named Diesel. Addy’s father is a diesel mechanic.
Mosher, who has also volunteered to bring food and supplies to victims of this year’s Northern California fires, said she was three minutes away from the field when she saw the Facebook post and headed right over. She was surprised by how many people were also there.
“The community really came through,” she said. “When things are needed, Gilroy comes through huge.”
The two dogs and three kids are getting along fine, she added. The dogs spent Wednesday cuddled up together.
