Move over, partridge in a pear tree — here comes a pooch in a pine.
The worried owners of a missing German Shepherd were dumbfounded to discover their 70-pound pup hiding in plain sight — 25 feet up a tree — near their California home on Monday morning.
“It was an impressive climb…how high she made it up,” the nine-month-old dog’s owner Brian Spies told KCRA of the seemingly species-defying feat, which occurred in the small town of Lotus, not far from Sacramento.
Spies had reportedly become concerned when young Luna hadn’t returned home after playing outdoors on Sunday morning.
Fearing Luna may have been injured, the distraught dog dad and a friend searched tirelessly to locate the precious pet, but to no avail.
“We basically looked for her all day, driving around the mountain and calling for her,” Spies recalled. “She would be out all night in the cold so that’s why we searched until dark.”
He was especially worried given the mountain community’s plethora of predators, including bears, coyotes and mountain lions.
The situation seemed hopeless until the following morning, when pals Luka Bogdanovich and Jared Johnson discovered Luna in her unlikely perch.
“I’m just driving down the road and look left. I’ll be darned,” Bogdanovich exclaimed. “I see something in the tree, and I went, ‘Holy cow, that’s the dog.’”
Accompanying footage shows the bewildered-looking German Shepherd perched impossibly in the branches of a treacherously steep evergreen, a la the titular character from “Dumbo.”
It’s yet unclear why Luna decided to attempt such a dangerous ascension.
However, Spies suspects that she was probably chasing a squirrel up the pine, which was angled in such a way that a dog could clamber up with relative ease, before realizing she’d made a “ginormous mistake.”
Thankfully, Spies had access to a 25-foot ladder, and was able to quickly retrieve his arboreally-inclined canine.
The rescue required Spies to “bear hug” Luna and walk backward down the ladder with no hands. All the while, his friends held a sleeping bag underneath to catch them if they fell — akin to a makeshift fireman’s trampoline.
Dogs climbing trees — at least ones that aren’t sloped for easy access — is far from common, but not unheard of.
Several species possess an aptitude for scaling great heights, including the Louisiana Catahoula Leopard, Tree Walker Coonhound, Jack Russell Terrier, New Guinea Singing Dog and the Raccoon Dog.
According to wagwalking.com, “these rigorous pooches will literally run up the tree trunk in excitement and pursuit of their catch.”
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