‘It just felt good to get him back’; Drone helps rescue dog trapped on ice
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CADOTT, Wisconsin (WQOW) — A Chippewa Valley dog was close to death, missing and stranded on a patch of ice near Lake Wissota. But this story has a happy ending thanks to the help of a drone and some perseverance.
Duke is an energetic English Lab that has been a part of the Arneson family for 12 years. But one week ago, he didn’t return after being let outside. Fear started to set in after Corey Arneson got a call from his wife.
“She called me and said she couldn’t find him,” he said.
Arneson called Dave Whitehouse, a retired Eau Claire firefighter who runs the business Northwest Wisconsin Lost Pet and Deer Recovery. Using a high-resolution drone with thermal imaging, Whitehouse locates lost animals.
“If people don’t have the money, I still do it. It doesn’t matter, I do it for the dogs,” said Whitehouse. “We went out the first day, covered miles and miles and we weren’t able to find him.”
On the second day a change of strategy lead to success.
“We headed off in a direction that we didn’t believe he went to, but we wanted to check, and it turned out that’s where he was,” Whitehouse explained.
Half a mile from the Arneson house, Duke was stranded on a patch of ice in the Yellow River near Lake Wissota.
“I just took off and hopped in my truck, went around the block and cut through a guy’s yard and down through the woods there he was,” Arneson said.
The rescue was all caught on the drone’s camera. Arneson had to wade through the frigid water. Once on the ice sheet, he found Duke couldn’t move and was nearly frozen in place, so he carried Duke across the river onto the safety of shore.
“When he pulled the dog off of the ice you can actually see a hole where the dog had melted all the way through the ice. So, I don’t know how much longer it would have been, and it was all ice downstream from there, so I don’t know that we ever know what happened,” Whitehouse said.
“It just felt good to get him back in my arms and be able to get him to the vet,” Arneson said.
Duke was treated for severe hypothermia and a kidney and bladder infection. He was released back to the Arneson family where he is slowly recovering.
“Me and my family we can’t thank Dave enough for the drone service. We definitely would have not found him. Without him he wouldn’t be here today,” Arneson said.
Duke is expected to make a full recovery. Arneson believes he will be back to his energetic self within a few weeks.
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