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‘Like a fairytale’ cat rescue Wednesday, March 9, 2022
Originally published in The Chronicle Vol. 140 March 2, 2021
ZOE GOTTLIEB chronicle2@countrymedia.net
A neighborhood cat is back in his owner’s arms after a successful searchand-rescue effort led by a dog with a prize-winning sniffer. In the days leading up to Friday, Feb. 18, Dennis Newman of Scappoose, was perplexed by what appeared to be a downturn in his cat’s physical health. Nevertheless, Dennis carried out business as
She’s used to ‘find it.’ She knows what that means. ~ Audrey Vasconcellos, friend and neighbor
usual at home. “I let him out Friday morning at 7:30,” he said. “He hadn’t been feeling good Wednesday, Thursday, a couple of days before that. I was a little leery about letting him out, but I let him out, figured he wouldn’t go very far because he was fairly weak for some reason. Never did see him until Monday night.” Cad, short for Cadillac, came into Dennis’s life when a neighbor friend discovered a nearby family had left town, abandoning their cats and dogs. Coincidentally, Dennis had lost his feline companion to cancer and needed a friend.
“His friend caught him and brought him here to give him to Dennis because he knew that Dennis missed his cat and needed a replacement cat,” neighbor Audrey Vasconcellos said. “Or another cat, I should say.” When the two became acquainted, Cad was in rough shape. “He was five-and-threequarters pounds when I got him,” he said. “You could count every rib on him.” From that point on, Dennis became Cad’s nurturer, and has been for four years. Cad also became a permanent fixture in Dennis’s life. “I just showed him I had food,” Dennis said. “He’d show up at nighttime and stick around. He decided to be my buddy because he knows I got food.” “He’s good company,” he added. “If I’m outside he’ll find me.”
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The search As Dennis wandered outside that Friday afternoon looking for Cad, who was typically at his beck and call, he was surprised to find no trace of him. Audrey and Dennis spent 20 hours apiece scouring the surrounding area for Cad. “Lifted hoods on parked cars (to) see if he’s in the motor wells, in the frames of cars,” he said, at which point Audrey jumped into the conversation, rattling off examples of where they searched. “(We) crawled on our backs under trailers, looked through all the brush, all up above, all down by the creek,” she said. “Everywhere.” Audrey recounted Dennis’s state of mind as the
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Zoe Gottlieb / The Chronicle
Cad reacts to the photo being taken by The Chronicle.
days went by. “Dennis was pretty devastated when he was gone,” Audrey said. “I mean no eating, no sleeping. He was pretty shattered.” “We knew he was probably close because he was weak, and he never really leaves the yard,” she explained. On Monday, the search pressed on, and Dennis came up with a suggestion the pair had never thought
of before. Dennis instructed Audrey to bring Anela, her dog with a sharp sense of smell, to lead the search effort. With Anela’s history in Nose Work and Barn Hunt competitions, an American Kennel Association competitive sport where dogs hunt for rats in PVC pipes, Anela appeared to be fit for the job. “She’s used to ‘find
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it.’ She knows what that means,” Audrey said. With Audrey following, Anela sniffed out the grounds and closed in on a nearby shed. “The dog couldn’t see underneath the shed, but it ran back and forth and had its nose underneath the flooring part of it and could smell him,” Dennis
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RESCUE From Page A1
explained. “So, I came back to the house and got out a shovel, so I could shovel the back out a little bit (to) see underneath it. I turned the flashlight on, and there were the little beady eyes.” “Pretty amazing to see him alive, it was,” he said. The rescue The pair called the Scappoose Fire Rural Protection District (SRFPD) right away. SRFPD Lieutenant Firefighter Brian Heuer and Firefighter EMT Keith Mathews arrived on the scene and immediately got their tools out. Cad was towards the back underneath the shed’s floor, wedged between cinder blocks. The crawl space was ample for a cat to squeeze through but getting him out would prove difficult. In an interview with The Chronicle, Mathews explained the work that went into rescuing Cad. “Once we got eyes on the cat, we were able to figure out that we needed to dig further towards the front of the shed to see if we can get hands on (him),” Mathews said. “We came up with a couple of different plans at the time, just either digging underneath the shed or also trying to get access to inside this shed to see if we can get through the floorboards instead of having to dig under.” With Anela whining and firefighters digging on either side of the shed, Dennis described Cad as frightened, as any cat might feel surrounded by a dog,
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lots of noise, and suffering a critical injury. “We ended up getting access to the inside, but the floorboards had a subfloor and we couldn’t get up underneath them,” Mathews said. “So, we went back to digging a hole under the side to try and gain access.” “I saw him leaking a bunch of fluid and thought, ‘We got to get him out of there as soon as possible because he was hurting,’” Dennis said. With both holes dug, Heuer and Mathews guided broom handles underneath the shed’s floor to scoot Cad forward, close enough for Dennis to grab hold of him. The feeling upon receiving Cad was nothing short of exaltation. “I started crying,” Audrey said. “I was so happy to see him. Yeah, we had a cage there ready to go so we put him in the crate, and off we went to Tanasbourne Vet straight away. They immediately saw him, triaged him, and took him right into surgery.” Mathews said he felt a similar sense of relief. “When we take somebody to the hospital, we don’t always know what their outcome is going to be,” Mathews said. “We don’t always get to find out, so when we are able to go on a call like this and (be) successful, it’s a good feeling.” By Thursday, Feb. 24, the chaos of the preceding days appeared to be forgotten as Dennis had Cad cradled in his lap, soaking up the warmth of a fire inside a garage parked next to a white Cadillac: his namesake. “It was amazing,” Audrey said, seated beside the pair. “It was like a fairytale. It all just worked out.”
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Zoe Gottlieb / The Chronicle
Four-year-old Cad recuperates in a rocking chair inside Dennis’s heated garage.
Zoe Gottlieb / The Chronicle
Anela is Audrey’s local companion of nine years, a retired agility dog who now competes in Work and Barn Hunt competitions.
Zoe Gottlieb / The Chronicle
Cad takes advantage of a rest in Dennis’ lap days following his rescue.
Zoe Gottlieb / The Chronicle
Anela demonstrates her sniffing abilities at the shed where Cad was rescued.
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