NH Dog found alive in well 2 months after escaping from woman's home
BOW, N.H. (AP) - A 1-year-old black Labrador that escaped from its home in September has been found stuck in a well and has been returned to its owner.
Eileen Ketcham tells NH1 (http://bit.ly/1MCVQTx ) she was trying to put her dogs Lillie and Sunny inside her home in Bow for the night on Sept. 13 when they took off.
"While I was putting the other dogs in, they went out of sight," she said. "Gone."
Sunny was killed along a highway that night, she said, and Lillie couldn't be found.
"It was heart-wrenching," she said.
She posted fliers with photos of Lillie and contacted Granite State Dog Recovery, an all-volunteer organization that works with police, animal control officers, shelters, veterinarians and rescue groups to reunite lost dogs with their owners.
On Nov. 1, Adam Cheney was hunting in an obscure wooded area near his parents' house when he heard a dog barking.
"All of a sudden I heard this loud dog bark, and it kind of startled me because it was so close," he told NH1.
About 15 yards away he discovered a very weak and emaciated Lillie stuck in a 5-foot-deep well, sitting in a foot and a half of water.
"She was cold, thin," he recalled. "She was shaking."
Cheney reached into the well and lifted out Lillie, who used to weigh 70 pounds but had dropped to about 45 and couldn't walk. It's unclear how long Lillie had been in the well.
Lillie eventually was returned to Ketcham, who is nursing her back to health.
"It was a happy ending," Ketcham said, "and Adam is our angel."