When a three-legged Australian cattle dog named Lucky went missing in Pennsylvania, her family searched desperately but found no trace of her.
Over a week later, Colleen Bell, founder of GoodBoy Dog Recovery, spotted the pup wandering down an alley between a row of crumbling houses.
Bell set a humane trap nearby, hoping Lucky would follow the scent of food — but instead, the dog vanished. Moments later, Bell heard faint barking echoing from inside one of the abandoned homes.
“Some of [the houses] are abandoned and slated for demolition,” Bell told The Dodo. “They’ve basically collapsed inside of themselves.”
Peering through a basement window, Bell finally saw Lucky — trapped deep inside a pile of debris. The entire floor of the home had caved in, leaving Lucky stranded in the basement, surrounded by jagged wood and broken bricks.
“It was such rough terrain,” Bell said. “I can’t even believe she went down in there. She must’ve climbed over all that trash and fallen straight through.”
To make matters worse, local authorities couldn’t send help — the building was condemned and unsafe for firefighters to enter.
Bell refused to give up. After 12 years of rescuing missing dogs, she wasn’t about to let this one die in the dark.
She quickly assembled her own rescue team — her brother, cousin, and a friend — and gathered plywood and two-by-fours to create a plan.
Working carefully, the group built a 24-foot wooden ramp and slid it through the basement window — the only stable entry point.
One team member crawled inside on his back, maneuvering through the wreckage while Lucky barked anxiously from below.
“She was about five or six feet down in a hole, totally stuck,” Bell said.
After a tense struggle, the team managed to lift Lucky to safety using a makeshift pulley system. As soon as she was out, the frightened dog transformed.
“She was a sweetheart,” Bell said. “She just looked over at me with her tail wagging. She was so thrilled to be rescued.”
A quick microchip scan revealed her family — who lived just a few miles away and had been heartbroken over her disappearance. When Lucky finally reunited with them, her tail never stopped wagging.
After more than a week on her own and a terrifying fall, the brave three-legged pup was finally home where she belonged.
To support Colleen Bell’s life-saving work through GoodBoy Dog Recovery, an all-volunteer nonprofit, you can donate through their website.
