Late on Friday morning, Wade Deisman was at his White Rock, BC home when he heard a bark and thought his neighbors had had a new pup.
Deisman, Associate Dean at Kwantlen Polytechnic University, had moved from Abbotsford to the suburb of Metro Vancouver near the US border in October.
The barking was new, but he thought of nothing. Until he heard it again and again until the next morning.
“I thought, ‘Geez, it sounds like the pup is having a hard time,'” he said. “It’s good to have a puppy, but you must take care of the puppy.”
Deisman glanced at his neighbors’ yards but couldn’t see a kennel. The next time he investigated, he found that he had made a mistake – the sound came from under his quarterdeck.
“I thought, ‘this is not the right story. This is not a story about a little neighbor’s puppy,'” he said.
Wade Deisman is an Associate Dean at Kwantlen Polytechnic University. (Wade Deisman)
Deisman ran to the side of the deck and noticed a small crack in the mud that led to some sort of air shaft or well. As he screamed into the small opening, he heard a whimper.
Then the adrenaline set in.
He grabbed a shovel and started digging, but couldn’t get through. He realized this was a job for a crowbar and a saw.
After pulling one of the planks away, Deisman used his phone’s flashlight to look down. And there it was – a little black dog.
Deisman tore the deck apart enough that he could pull himself up to fetch the dog and lift him out of the shaft onto the deck.
“I was so relieved and she was literally shaking,” he said.
Wade Deisman had to tear up his quarterdeck to save the Cairn Terrier trapped in an air shaft below. (Wade Deisman)
What likely happened, Deisman suspects, is that the dog must have followed a rodent through the crack in the mud and fell into the well or manhole.
The dog had a license but no phone number on the label. So Deisman looked around Craigslist and sure enough there was a post about a lost little black dog. He called and shortly thereafter Tim and Yvonne Everson were standing on his doorstep.
Tim and Yvonne Everson were overjoyed to be reunited with their Cairn Terrier Callie. (Wade Deisman)
“We just went crazy. We were just overjoyed,” said Tim Everson, owner of the dog, whose name is Callie.
Deisman found out that Callie is a 10 year old Cairn Terrier. Everson says she’s very curious and has a habit of slipping through the side gate when it’s not properly closed, but she usually doesn’t go far and comes home quickly.
When Callie went missing Thursday night, it was different, Everson says.
The Eversons immediately hired family and friends to find them, to no avail. They spread the word on social media and started posting posters in the neighborhood.
Yvonne Everson and her dog Callie who have been missing for almost 48 hours. (Tim Everson)
When the Eversons got Callie back, she had been missing for almost 48 hours.
“Our hearts just fell,” he said.
Since Callie returned home, she has received a lot of love and attention. And she might return to Deisman’s home soon. The Eversons said they would bring her to play with Deisman’s two young children who asked to keep her.
In the meantime, Deisman has reassembled his quarterdeck. He plans to cover the gap Callie probably slipped through with a screen.
