Utah County Sheriff’s Search and Rescue(Utah County, Utah) — Mary, an American foxhound, is back home, safe and sound, after surviving several nights perched on the side of a cliff this past weekend in Provo, Utah, according to rescuers.
Armed with a camera, supplies and treats, of course, volunteer Shaun Roundy and members of the Utah County Sheriff’s Search and Rescue team set out last Friday, hiking half a mile up steep terrain, to remove the 3-year-old canine from the mountainside.
It was not clear how Mary had made it to the cliff with the 60-foot drop. Rescuers said he’d been there since last Thursday.
“We’ve got a dog harness. We’re going to propel down, put that on [Mary and] bring [her] back down to safety,” Roundy said in a video posted on YouTube by the Utah rescue team.
Roundy and his team, however, quickly learned that would not be the case with Mary the stubborn beagle.
Despite Roundy feeding her treats and trying to coax her to him, the dog refused to let the rescuer put the harness on or even touch her.
“We thought this dog’s been [here], overnight, on the coldest night of the year. It’s going to be hungry. It’s going to be happy to see us,” Roundy told ABC affiliate Good4Utah.com.
In the more than 21 minute video posted by the team, Roundy’s camera captured his harrowing attempts to rescue the beagle from a perch.
“Don’t go jumping off any cliffs now. Come here, Mary,” Roundy could be heard saying on the video. “OK, Mary. Hang on, girl. Good girl. Got some treats for you.”
Roundy said he fed Mary dog treats and even had the owner speak to the canine on a walkie-talkie, but to no avail. The team spent two hours trying to rescue Mary, until the sun set and the temperatures started dropping.
“I thought if I take one more step closer, it’s going to fall off,” Roundy said.
In the YouTube video, the team said that before abandoning efforts for the night, it fed Mary jerky, sardines and a granola bar and even left her a bag with hand warmers inside to sit on.
The team said it planned to try again Saturday, but this time with a net. When they returned, however, Mary was gone.
“The owner did return the following morning and coaxed her down,” John Luke, a Utah County spokesman, said Wednesday. “She had some scrapes and minor cuts but was otherwise OK.”
The owners did not want to be identified.
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