CLARKSVILLE, TN (CLARKSVILLE NOW) – Montgomery County Fire Service volunteers have received a lot of animal rescue calls over the years, but Station 17 recently went on their most unusual rescue yet.
On Sept. 28, Joy and Herb Martin were battling with malfunctioning smoke alarms in their house in the Kirkwood area of Montgomery County. But after the problem was fixed, they noticed they were missing someone. Petey, the beloved family dog, had found a seemingly impossible hiding spot.
“We’ve done animal rescues for cats in trees and animals trapped in storm drains,” Assistant Fire Chief Wesley O’Brien told Clarksville Now. “But never something as strange as a dog stuck in a toilet.”
Petey finds porcelain hiding spot
That Sunday morning, even with a ladder, neither Joy nor Herb were able to reach the “screaming” alarm on the ceiling, so they called their son-in-law to give them a hand. The son-in-law was able to find the issue, and there was a moment of relief when the house fell quiet.
But Petey, a 12-year-old black and white Havanese, was missing.
“We looked everywhere for our dog, and I thought, ‘Where is Petey?'” Joy recalled. They searched the house for several minutes with no luck when Joy heard a little sound coming from their bathroom.
“It was unbelievable,” Joy said. “I said, ‘I believe it’s coming from the toilet.'”
Many people are familiar with a standard toilet: curved at the base with a winding porcelain trap in the back. However, the Martins’ bathroom has a modern, bidet-style toilet. It sits nearly flush against the wall, and from base to toilet bowl, it’s encased in a hollow porcelain cover or “skirt.” Underneath the skirt, it looks like a normal toilet.
Somehow, Petey had gotten behind and inside that porcelain skirt. Joy and Herb tried to coax him out with treats, even getting on the floor to try to help him, but Petey just could come out far enough.
“My son-in-law and daughter left, and they said, ‘Oh, Mom, he’ll come out when he gets ready to,'” Joy said. “Well, I couldn’t accept that, because Petey is a dog that loves to be around people, he loves to be with you, and I knew that Petey would come out if he could.”
Joy decided to call 911.
From rabbit in drain to dog in toilet
At about noon, O’Brien and Station 17 Capt. Nicholas Whitley were just finishing a call on Interstate 24 when dispatch reported a dog stuck in a toilet.
“It’s only the day before that we were dispatched for a rabbit stuck in a drain,” Whitley told Clarksville Now. “That day when we were dispatched for a dog stuck in a toilet, the fire service was like ‘You never know what you’re going to get when you get to work.'”
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Whitley and O’Brien arrived to barking and whining coming from the bathroom.
“When I made it into the bathroom, I saw Petey’s dad (Herb) on the ground by the toilet trying to talk Petey out and the barking was coming from the toilet,” Whitley recalled. “But the toilet lid was closed, and at that point I asked if we could open up the toilet lid to try and get him out because I thought he was stuck in the bowl section.”
The Martins explained that Petey was trapped underneath the toilet, and Whitley and O’Brien were stunned. Whitley called for backup with hand tools as O’Brien got down on the floor to assess the situation and form a plan.
Coming up with a bidet rescue plan
Don Kroll from Station 17 and John Witherspoon from Station 18 arrived to assist.
“He (Petey) was definitely in a rough spot,” Whitley said. “Could definitely tell he was tired and weak, and by the way he was barking, he was in pain. He wanted to get out but he just couldn’t.”
O’Brien figured out how the 12-pound dog got stuck. The skirt covered the radius of the bowl and base. On the back, O’Brien explained, there was a 4- to 5-inch clearance between the wall and the toilet with a small opening in the skirt.
O’Brien was able to get one arm behind the toilet and, using sockets and wrenches, remove one of the bolts on the back. They were able to twist the entire toilet so that its backside wasn’t directly facing the wall. As soon as O’Brien stepped back, a small black and white dog wearing a little jacket wiggled his way out.
‘Kisses and tail wags’ from Petey
“We checked on him, did a brief once-over to make sure there’s no obvious signs of distress or injury,” O’Brien said. “But Petey was very happy to be out of that situation. A very friendly, very friendly dog. He was all kisses and tail wags.”
“I think there was a moment where we were almost just as excited as the Martins were,” Whitley said with a smile.
The Martins were relieved to have Petey back. “We blocked it (the toilet) off where he could never go back in there again, which I don’t think that he would,” Joy said. “But they (the firefighters) were absolutely wonderful to us.”
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“I think it’s important for the community to know that we’re here for them,” Whitley said. “That is our purpose. We are going to come in with that professionalism and that overall desire to make any situation that the public calls us to better. That’s why we do what we do.”
“You’ve got to treat a dog trapped in a toilet no different than a victim in a house fire,” O’Brien agreed. “This was a team effort. You don’t accomplish anything in this line of work as individuals.”
For more, go to the Montgomery County Fire Service website.
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