Hudson Firefighters Rescue Elderly Dog Stuck in Swamp

Hudson Firefighters answered an unusual call Oct. 4, for a report of a dog stuck in a swamp. 

As it turned out, it was no ordinary dog – it was 15-year-old Casey, a yellow lab beloved by her humans, the Chase family, who had lost her way in the woods and somehow waded into the middle of a swamp, 30 feet from solid ground.
 
It all started Oct. 4, while she was outside doing what dogs do, when something spooked her, and she bolted, then got turned around.

"We couldn't see her at all, we could only hear her out there at first. It was pitch black. Then, she stopped moving," said Chase, of Casey, who joined the family when she was just 8 weeks old, and his son, Matt, was only 6.
  
"We basically grew up together," said Matt Chase, now 21. "She's always been here for me."

Which is why it was so frustrating for them when Casey got lost in the thick woods behind their house on Musquash Road.

Casey can't see or hear much anymore. She gets winded easily and takes her time coming and going – and sometimes, she gets confused – but a dog treat usually brings her back to her senses.

"We still don't know what it was, but something scared her into the woods, and she couldn't find her way," Chase said, describing the panic they felt, knowing Casey couldn't hear or see anything.

"Then, she just stopped moving. We couldn't hear her anymore. After several hours, we had to give up on her," Chase said. 

That's when his son, Matt Chase, and his fiancee, Heather Jennings, heard something. 

"We could hear her barking, so we followed the sound and realized she had managed to make her way out into the middle of the swamp – she was 30 feet out, and it's full of beaver dams," Matt Chase said.

They had run out of the house so fast that neither grabbed a phone, so Jennings ran back to the house to call 911 while Matt Chase stayed to keep watch over Casey. 

"I lost her a couple times, but the firefighters finally got here and lit up the water so they could find her," Chase said. "It was hard, seeing the dog you grew up with, struggling like that. I wanted to jump in there after her, because I knew she'd do the same for me."

Hudson Firefighter Mike Mulcay said he and his fellow firefighters had to figure out a way to get to where Casey was, eventually taking a different route, through a property on James Way, to get to her. At that point, they realized the only way to rescue Casey was for someone to get into a wet suit and retrieve her.

"I was feeling my way with one of our ice rescue polls, just to see where my footing was, and there was a bunch of beaver debris," Mulcay said. "It was a workout to get out there."

The thick muck and fluctuating depth of the water made it tricky, but he finally reached old Casey, who was panting and shivering, and completely covered in mud.

"I picked her up and put her over my right shoulder, and had to feel my way back, slowly," Mulcay said. "I didn't want to do any more damage to her."

At one point Mulcay had to stop to take a break, so he put Casey down next to him on the ground. 

"She looked up at me as if to say, 'What are you doing?' She was covered, head to toe, with muck," Mulcay said. 

And it took several baths to get her cleaned up, Nate Chase said, plus a trip to the groomer. But thanks to the efforts of Mulcay and the rest of the crew, Casey survived with just a cut or two. She's just about back to her old self, which means she takes her time, coming and going, and follows her nose when all else fails her.

"When you think about all the fiscal restraints a town like Hudson faces, and sometimes there's haggling over whether to give firefighters a raise, or upgrade their equipment. But in an experience like this, you realize that next week it could be your 5-year-old child who's lost, or your grandmother. It means a lot to me that they were equipped to save Casey," Nathan Chase said. 

"And so I had to ask the chief if I was going to get a bill, since it was all for a dog. But he said no, it's part of our service to the community," Chase said. "That's something. That's wonderful. We're so grateful they saved her."