ROCKY RIVER, Ohio (WOIO) - One family was frantic on Saturday night after their elderly and deaf family dog went missing at a home along Lake Erie.
With no way to physically call for the deaf dog named Pumpkin, the greater community came together to make missing posters, search, and think of alternative ways to help get Pumpkin back home.
Pumpkin has been a constant in Sonja Jarmoszuk’s family for many years.
“We’ve had her for 15-and-a-half years and she’s just a part of us,” says Jarmoszuk.
The Portuguese Water Dog who is also a little unsteady on her paws gave her family a panic on Saturday when she disappeared.
“We couldn’t even yell her name out to try to find her to see if she would bark at us,” said Jarmoszuk.
It became too late and dark on Saturday, so the family had to suspend the search until early Sunday morning.
Meanwhile, Jarmoszuk posted all over social media asking for help looking for Pumpkin.
The next day, the community stepped up big time.
Neighbors and strangers doing what they could searching anywhere they could possible imagine and handing out flyers.
One neighbor even took a paddleboard out to search the shoreline above which the home sits up a steep embankment.
“I live in a great community. I mean, the people, the support, the help, the outreach, the I mean, even 7 and 8-year-old kids were helping us,” said Jarmoszuk.
The hours were ticking by, approaching 24 hours since Pumpkin had last been seen, when Jarmoszuk got a message from a woman she’d never met suggesting she reach out to a drone operator.
“The thermal drone was the answer to my prayers,” said Jarmoszuk.
That’s when Craig Fazenbaker of Grunt Deer Recovery LLC got the emergency call on Sunday and drove an hour to help.
“We have animals here at my house it’s not a an animal it’s a member of your family,” said Fazenbaker.
He used his thermal drone to search the coastline, but said he had a gut feeling that Pumpkin wasn’t far from home.
Drone video shows a hot spot far down the embankment from the home.
It was Pumpkin trapped amongst the vines nearly down to the water.
Not only did they find the beloved family dog, she was sitting upright and was alert after 27 hours.
Turns out, Pumpkin had tumbled down the viny embankment and became tangled in the vines so she couldn’t move.
Not only did Fazenbaker, a retired Marine, find Pumpkin from above, but he decided to climb down to the dog and rescue her as well.
“As soon as my arms went around her, that’s when her tail was just instantly going to town like hey someone’s picking me up I’m safe now,” said Fazenbaker.
Jarmoszuk says she is so grateful for Fazenbaker saving their dog and everyone else form the community who helped track down her family’s best friend.
“All the people that helped in this community, even in neighboring cities, they were coming and looking for her was just emotional and goodness in people for sure,” said Jarmoszuk.
They took Pumpkin to the vet the next morning and she’s doing great with no injures after her harrowing 27 hours away from her family.