When Madison firefighters were called to rescue a pet Tuesday morning, it wasn’t a cat stuck in a tree they found, but rather a dog trapped under a deck — and in dangerously cold temperatures.
The owners had attempted to get the small dog out from under the deck of the Southwest Side home for an hour before the Madison Fire Department’s Ladder Co. 7 pulled up on the 2600 block of McKenna Boulevard, department spokesperson Cynthia Schuster said in a statement.
When firefighters arrived just after 8:45 a.m., the temperature was hanging around zero. Anxious about the dog’s safety, Schuster said, one of the owners told firefighters: “Tear the deck apart. We want our dog alive.”
The only way under the deck was a “very small hole” where the dog likely went through, Schuster said, so firefighters acted on the owner’s request and began to cut up the deck.
An inspection hole was cut in the part of the deck where the dog had last been barking, she said. More decking then needed to be removed. When the dog was finally located, her leash was found to be caught on deck nails, Schuster said. The leash was detached, and the dog returned uninjured to her owners.
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