Paw response by emergency services sets major free - The Daily Examiner

AMONG the flood rescues and roof patch-ups in wild weather on the weekend, there is one job attended by the State Emergency Service that stands out more than most.

SES volunteer Adam Jarrett was surprised to see the job beep on his mobile as he returned from a flood rescue call-out in the early hours of Sunday morning.

It wasn't the timing of the message that caught him off-guard but the content; a dog in South Grafton was stuck under a house with its paw caught in a plastic laundry basket.

When they arrived at the Fitzgerald St, flood rescue boat in tow, police were on scene and a large brown ridgeback by the name of Major, was indeed, under the house with a washing basket in tow.

Mr Jarrett said that animal rescues were rare, but this was the third the Grafton unit had been called to since Anzac Day, when they rescued a dog from the bottom of a steep embankment at Mountain View.

The second was removing a kitten from a drain.

"It's our role to manage rescues, and domestic animals fit the legal definition of what we class as a rescue," he said.

"You can't take one without the other; they're all the same."

Despite having a 'ruff' time, Major was freed by SES volunteers with a pair of scissors and was none the worse for his ordeal.

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