While climbing in a canyon on the Utah/Arizona border, Zak Anderegg spotted a stray dog and brought him to safety.
Zak Anderegg loves adventure sports, and last weekend, he decided to go rappelling in the beautiful canyons along the Utah/Arizona border. But he never expected his excursion into the depths of the canyon to turn into a rescue mission.
As Anderegg was climbing down into the canyon, he saw a small, scared dark animal pacing the rocks below him, about 350 feet down. At first, he thought it may have been a calf, but as he got closer, he realized it was a dog.
“He was completely starved. He was, my best guess would be, 24 to 48 hours from being dead,” he told the Today Show.
“When I saw him, my heart just absolutely broke. And within about, you know, 10 seconds of realizing what he was, my plan shifted from vacation to, you know, rescue, get him out of here.”
Anderegg wasn’t sure if he could get the dog out of the canyon on his own, so he climbed out to get some water for the animal, and then drove to the nearest town an hour away to plead for help—but town officials weren’t willing to take the incident seriously, and refused to send rescue assistance.
So Anderegg decided to take care of the situation himself. He borrowed a cat carrier from a local animal hospital and attached it to his ropes, lifting the scared dog out of the canyon as he climbed back out. The dog spent the next few days at the animal hospital, but despite his frightening ordeal, he doesn’t seem to have suffered any serious damage. Now, Anderegg and his wife Michelle are providing foster care for the dog until he can find a permanent home—and the dog has already warmed up to the couple.
“I walk and I stop and he bumps into me, he follows me so closely,” said Michelle. “He comes everywhere with me.”