When a Cincinnati family endured the harrowing experience of their beloved dog’s disappearance for an entire week, it became their worst nightmare. Little did they know that their furry companion had been trapped in a drainage pipe throughout this ordeal, frightened, hungry, and crying. Their initial sorrow gradually transformed into a mixture of fear and ecstasy as they reunited with their furry friend.
Meet Edgar, a 4-year-old black retriever mix whose story serves as a cautionary tale for pet owners worldwide.
Edgar and his faithful companion, Oscar, had attempted a daring escape from their home garage while their owner, Sean Ryan, was busy working on his car. The Ryans usually used an electric fence and leashes to keep their dogs in check, but occasionally, they allowed them some freedom during supervised playtime. Whenever the dogs had escaped in the past, they had always returned, sometimes covered in mud after a night of adventurous excursions in the woods.
“They are good boys, but they love to sneak out,” Sean Ryan said of his dogs. “They’ll break free and come back home on their own in a night or two.”
However, this time was different. Oscar returned home the next morning, but Edgar remained missing, causing the family great concern.
“We thought that if he was on our street, he wasn’t lost,” Sean Ryan optimistically remarked. “He would just come home.” But as days turned into weeks, Edgar was still nowhere to be found.
A week had passed, and there was still no sign of Edgar. Sean Ryan was out on his daily walk with Oscar, feeling the weight of the possibility of life without his missing dog when he heard a familiar high-pitched whine.
“We call Ed’s nickname ‘The Whistler,’” he explained. “It’s easy to mistake the sound of birds singing for him whining… There was no dog in sight as I stood on the grass. I thought I was hallucinating, but I told myself, ‘Okay, I’ll wait until I figure out what that sound is.’”
Sean couldn’t ignore Edgar’s peculiar whimpering pattern, so he cautiously followed the sound. He ended up near a neighbor’s lawn where a vertical pipe intersected a drainage ditch beneath it, and the whining grew louder. That’s when he discovered Edgar.
“I could see nothing but his eyes glowing back at me,” Sean Ryan recalled, tears welling up in his eyes. “He was excited to see me, but he was frantic for me to get him out.”
Sean was overwhelmed with a mix of emotions – relief at finding his dog and dread at seeing him trapped in the pipe. He walked in circles, perplexed, unable to figure out how to free Edgar.
The fire department was called, and a rescue squad responded promptly. They excavated to reveal the pipe and then dug a hole a few feet away from Edgar, gently coaxing him out. Edgar had endured a traumatic experience, starving and covered in blisters from lying in water.
Fortunately, a visit to the vet indicated that there would be no long-term consequences. Edgar received an IV bag, a blood test, antibiotics, and a shave to aid in his recovery.
“He’s made a remarkable recovery,” said Sean Ryan. “In fact, he’s already ventured back to the scene!”
Sean had carried the weight of guilt since the incident, but the happy ending provided solace not only to him but also to his wife, Juli, and their 20-year-old son, Lucas, who shared Edgar’s story with the world through a popular Imgur gallery.
The family has now decided to purchase GPS trackers for both of their dogs to allow them to embrace their adventurous side without worry.
Sean Ryan believes that the message goes beyond responsible pet ownership. “I can’t believe how close I was to giving up,” he reflected. “We walk that loop every day… I don’t know how many times I passed him. That’s what I hope people will take away from this: don’t make assumptions, and never give up.”
He shared the story of how Edgar got trapped in the pipe, saying, “We think he went in there because he’s afraid of thunder. To escape at home, he’ll cram himself into a crack under the bed… We believe he sneaked in during the storm, then got stuck against that vertical pipe, unable to walk backward or escape.”
He also offered crucial advice to other dog owners: “You should always have tags and microchips on your dogs. And, as I’ve since discovered, if your dogs are ‘runners’ like Edgar, you should also use a GPS tracking device.”