A dog that fell down a cliff at Fort Funston was saved from certain doom Wednesday, when emergency crews climbed down the rockface and rescued the pup.
The San Francisco Fire Department was called to the Fort Funston area at around noon, a tweet from the SFFD reported. When they arrived they discovered that a dog in an off-leash portion of the park went off the edge of the cliff, and was stranded on a ledge below.
“That area is a leashless area," SFFD spokesperson Jonathan Baxter told the Chron. "However, we recommend people remember that animals need to be within range for verbal commands, and people need to be responsible and keep their animals away from the cliffside."
According to NBC Bay Area, "it took a crew of 16 people roughly one hour to pull the dog to safety," as the Chron reports that "Firefighters dropped ropes down the cliffside and lowered a firefighter, who then secured the dog in a harness and retrieved him."
It's good, says Baxter, that the SFFD was called to perform the rescue, as civilians who go after their dogs often put themselves in peril. “A lot of times we will have an animal-person rescue and that’s because the companion will go down to attempt to rescue and get stuck, themselves,” Baxter says. Two recent cases in point: A corgi guardian who got stuck on a ledge with his pup in September, and another Fort Funston-goer who had to be rescued with his dog in December.
But in this case, the only victim was a dog, one that was safely reunited with its dogsitter, the Chron reports, after being brought to safety. Watch the whole rescue below:
UPDATE FORT FUNSTON CLIFF RESCUE DOG SAVED ADHER TO SIGNS pic.twitter.com/7DCnCuzw86
— San Francisco Fire (@sffdpio) February 22, 2017
Related: Dog Tumbles Off Fort Funston Cliff, Guardian Follows