If this were a story about a dog falling 170-feet down a cliff and not surviving, then I wouldn’t be posting that kind of buzzkill on our website.
So let’s skip to the end and go ahead and open things up with the fact that the dog that falls 170-feet down a cliff in this story survives. It’s a feel-good story, not a buzzkill.
The incident occurred at the Red River Gorge in Kentucky, one of my favorite places to hike when I was a student at the nearby Eastern Kentucky University.
According to WLWT, a pit bull mix named Tyson reportedly toppled more than 170-feet down a cliff at the Red River Gorge after accidentally chasing a lizard over the edge.
Officials with the Wolfe County Search and Rescue Team received a call from a hiker at about 1 PM on Sunday. The hiker told them that his dog was chasing a lizard across Frog’s Head Rock along the Indian Arch trail when the pooch got a little overzealous trying to catch the reptile and tumbled off the edge.
The dog’s owner immediately called 911 and recruited some nearby hikers to help him search the area for the missing dog.
Expecting the worst, the rescue team set out down the Bison Way Trailhead to make their way towards the base of the Frog’s Head cliff-line.
While hiking in, they bumped into a group of hikers who said they saw an unleashed dog walking around the area further down the trail. The hikers had a photo of the dog, and the rescue crew was able to forward the pictures to the dog’s owner. Though the rescue team was admittedly expecting their search to be focused on recovering a dead dog, the dog’s owner confirmed that the dog the hikers had photographed was the same dog that fell off the cliff.
Miraculously, the dog was somehow unharmed. Not long after the group split up to cover more ground, the dog was located and reunited with his owner. Much like the people of Eastern Kentucky, the dogs down there are just built a little bit tougher down there, too, I guess.
“He was quickly found for a joyful reunion. How Tyson survived 170′ fall is nothing short of miraculous, and he was basically unhurt. This has certainly been a week of miracles in the Red River Gorge.”
