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Firefighters Rescue Dog Trapped For 3 Days

RANCHO CORDOVA, Calif. (CBS13) – Firefighters successfully pulled a small dog out of the drain he was trapped in for as long as three days.

Owner Joseph Hernandez said he frantically began searching for his miniature Schnauzer, named Casper, when the dog vanished after being let out onto his home's lawn.

"I let him out, he was on the lawn, I went back in the house for about five minutes, I came back out and he was gone," Joseph said.

Neighbors joined the search but had little success, at least until Patty Monk walked her dog Rowdy past a storm drain.

Rowdy began barking, and Patty heard another dog responding from inside an eight-inch pipe.

"I said, 'Oh my God, you know he's in the drain,'" Patty said.

Patty and Joseph called the Sacramento Metro Fire Department, who devised a plan to get the dog out.

"We came up with an idea of taking a fire hose, filling it, putting a cap on it and taking a teddy bear that's nice and soft, and wrapping it around the end of the fire hose, using it as a pipe cleaner and basically just pushing the dog out of the end of the pipe," said Capt. Christian Pebbles.

The idea worked perfectly, Pebbles said.

Firefighters pulled the dehydrated dog out of the storm drain to applause by neighbors, and handed the pet over to his owner to be rushed to the veterinarian.

There is no immediate word on Casper's condition or how he ended up in the drain.

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