Dog falls of of cliff on my home town trails...

VOORHEESVILLE — On Wednesday, Shiba, a 6-month-old female Shiba Inu puppy, will have her front left leg amputated, her bones too badly broken to properly heal.

Consider her lucky. It could have been much worse.

After breaking away from her owner Sunday morning in Thacher Park, the red-and-white pooch ran wild for hours until she came to a steep, rocky embankment. She fell off its edge, plummeting some 75 feet to the shale below.

Somehow, she survived. It took rescuers more than five hours to find her curled up in a narrow crevice, frightened and exhausted.

"It was an incredible relief when she finally came up," said Samantha Cullum, Shiba's owner. "When she got home, I couldn't get her out of the cage fast enough to hold her."

Shiba and her sister, Mia, were walking alongside Cullum about 9 a.m. when the pups broke away and chased after a pack of joggers who were passing by. Cullum was able to corral Mia, but Shiba kept going — for two miles.

A passer-by told Cullum he saw the dog crawl under a fence and then go off the cliff. Albany County Sheriff Craig Apple explained that the cliff is not a straight drop-off, but rather a precipitous decline of soft shale. Shiba likely hit the rocks at some point midway through the fall, then either rolled or ran down the rest of the way.

Rescuers spotted Shiba several times crisscrossing the vast valley despite the broken leg. One responder came within a foot of grabbing her, but Shiba dashed away in fear.

"Her colors blend with the leaves," Cullum said. "They would go hours without seeing her."

It wasn't until about 3 p.m., when three rescuers repelled down the rocks, that the puppy was pulled to safety. Shiba had crawled into a 3-foot-deep crevice to hide. She was taken to Latham Animal Hospital, where she was fitted her a large pink cast. Cullum, who lives in East Greenbush, stayed home Monday to be with her dog.

"She's comfortable for now," Cullum said. "She's doing OK."

Cullum admits she should have had the dogs on a leash, which is a rule at the park. She said she only was letting her dogs run free because they had done so before responsibly. They were deep inland as well, Cullum said, about two miles from the nearest cliffs.

"I feel awful," Cullum said. "It was stupid. I should have known better."

Members of the sheriff's office rescue team and maintenance staff from the park were involved in the rescue, which Apple estimates cost several thousand dollars. The sheriff said Cullum will not be billed for the rescue, but that it was an accident that could have been avoided if Cullum had followed the leash rules.

"I am glad the animal is OK, but in the future please leash your dog," Apple said.

One of the oldest dog breeds in the world, Shiba Inus were bred to hunt in the mountains of Japan and are adept at maneuvering rocky terrains, according to the American Kennel Club's website. Shiba Inus, however, can be difficult to control off a leash and often do not listen to orders. They naturally possess an "unaffected forthrightness" and "an independent nature," the website said.

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stoney said:

As bad as this sounds, I really hope the owne r is paying for all of the expenses related to the rescue of that dog. Five hours to rescue the dog is probably a big expense that shouldn't be paid for anybody but them.

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