Dog joins in with firefighter training after road rescue
It’s usually a cat up a tree, but one Black Country firefighter helped reunite a dog with its worried ownersUN after spotting it running down a busy road.
Watch Commander at West Bromwich Fire Station, Pete Finazzy, was on his way into work when he spotted Harvey bounding down a road in Walsall.
The two-year-old Labradoodle was running along the busy A4148 Broadway North, near Walsall Arboretum, on Sunday morning after running off from his owners. Pete scooped up the excited pup and took him down to the station in Hargate Lane, West Bromwich.
Harvey was looked after by the officers who then used social media to track down the owners.
Tweets from the West Bromwich Fire account shows Harvey mucking in the training with the officers appealed for his family to come forward.
Watch Commander Pete Finazzy said: “I suppose it is a rescue of sorts.
“I was on my way into work at about 6.30am, there wasn’t many people or cars around, with it being a Sunday and how early it was.
“I was going past near the Arboretum in Walsall when I saw a dog running down the road.
“I pulled over and called the dog to come over to me first and when it was happy to come over it seemed very excited and I made a bit of a fuss over him.
“It’s a very busy road down there, it’s essentially a duel carriageway to the ring road so we’re lucky not many cars were around.”
“The next step was to bring him to the station, there wasn’t really anywhere else I could take him.
“I’m a dog owner myself and I put myself in the owner’s shoes, if it was me I’d be beside myself and be so worried, so the best thing to do was to bring him to work.
“This shows the power of social media, it was so quick to track down the owners, he was only with us at the station for a couple hours in the end.
“There’s always the worry that it’s the right owner turning up but you could tell by the way the dog reacted, he was very happy to see them.
“The owners were very grateful to us for looking after him.”
Harvey’s owner Mellisa Jevon said: “My husband took him on his daily walk around the Arboretum, and he threw a ball for him, but Harvey just kept running. It was dark and Harvey is black so he disappeared. “For the next few hours we were searching the area trying to find him and we asked everyone.
“We asked joggers if they had seen him and luckily one of the joggers saw my daughter’s post on Facebook and the pictures on Twitter and put two and two together and then messaged my daughter.
“It was awful thinking we had lost him, we want to thank the jogger and the fire station for their help.
“Without social media anything could have happened to him.
“We’ve had a tough start to the year when our cat was killed at New Year, so it’s been a stressful time with animals. We can’t thank Pete and the fire team enough.” I took them some goodies earlier to say thank you.
“This also shows the power of speaking to people and the conjunction with speaking to the jogger and the power of social media.
“We’ve seen the good side of people, everyone was so concerned and said they would keep an eye out and take down our contact numbers.”
