Missing border collie found stuck in a tree

DAVENPORT, Iowa -- A 7-year-old border collie who was missing from his Iowa home for a few days didn't get very far -- he only went up.

Laddy the dog was found Sunday morning stuck up a tree two blocks from his Davenport home, the Quad-City Times reported.

"I asked where they found him, and the officer said, ‘You'll never believe this,"' said his owner, Cynthia Weeks.

Ron Stevenson was working in the yard of his home when he heard a dog. He had previously heard the dog barking, but he didn't want to complain. However, something was different this time.

"I heard a whining, and I knew something wasn't right. This time, it sounded in distress," Stevenson said.

He followed the sound along his driveway and, counterintuitively, looked up. There was the dog, at least 10 feet up in the tree.

"He was kind of shielded by leaves on the tree," Stevenson said of the dog, who he thinks maybe ran up the oak tree's gradually sloping trunk but then became too scared to run back down.

Stevenson told the newspaper he called police and accepted one dispatcher's skepticism.

"They got here pretty fast, but I was getting impatient," he said. "I didn't know if the dog would bite me, but I just sort of shimmied up the tree. I grabbed him by the collar and sort of pulled him. I said, ‘It's time for you to get out of this tree."'

A responding police officer had seen fliers about Laddy and knew where the dog lived. He was reunited with Weeks a short time later.

Weeks said she believes Laddy escaped Friday from an invisible electronic fencing system thanks to a nonworking battery in his collar. She said his love for squirrels and chasing things probably led him up the tree. Despite a few abrasions on the pads of his feet, he's otherwise fine.

"He was pretty subdued when he got home," she said. "He's been doing a ton of sleeping."