FORT PLAIN, N.Y. (NEWS10) -The Fort Plain Fire Department was called to Lock 15 at 9:05 in the morning on Wednesday. A dog had accidentally fallen over the canal wall and into the water.
Once on scene four minutes later, Assistant Fire Chief Justin Smith climbed into the lock. “Ended up finding a water pipe in the canal wall that the dog was able to get out of the water but could not get out physically. Tried to get the dog out of the canal wall but obviously it was scared you know won’t come to me.”
The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office was also there to help. It gave Assistant Chief Smith what he called a dog reach pole. “The hole in the canal wall was fairly deep so I had to use the dog reach pole in order to get in there and get the dog to me and then I was able to carry it and get it out of the water.”
The rescue took around twenty minutes and the small mix dog was reunited with its family. Assistant Chief Smith has some advice for people coming out to enjoy the weather:
“The Mohawk River is a beautiful site. It’s great that we have it in the county. It’s great to go down next to the water. We just encourage people to use caution on the canal wall. We always encourage if you’re ever close to the canal wall that you have a life vest on. God forbid you fall in, slip, something happens. You wanna be the safest possible you can be because the river does have a current to it and you know it’s a little bit different with the low head dams that occur there. Also if you’ve got animals, we suggest that they’re always on a leash and within your control. This instance was just an accident. There wasn’t any malicious behavior at all. We always just encourage people to try to keep an eye on their pets if they’re going down there.”
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