German shepherd gets stuck 25 feet up tree in California

Cats are rescued from trees all of the time. Dogs – not as much.

Luna, a 70-pound German shepherd, found herself stranded up a pine tree in Lotus, California, earlier this week.

Her owner, Brian Spies, told a local television station that he became concerned when his nine-month-old pup didn’t return home after playing outside Sunday morning. He and a friend spent hours searching for Luna with no luck.

“We basically looked for her all day, driving around the mountain and calling for her,” Spies told KCRA-TV. “We were worried that she was injured. She would be out all night in the cold, so that’s why we searched until dark.”

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Since Lotus is a mountain community with predators like cougars, bears and coyotes, they feared the worst.

The following morning, one of Spies’ friends, Luka Bogdanovich, was driving in the area and luckily spotted Luna – 25 feet up a pine tree. Spies, who works in construction, brought a 24-foot ladder and climbed the tree to rescue his dog.

“I kind of reached up, grabbed her, and bear-hugged her and walked down the ladder with no hands, as carefully as possible,” Spies told the TV station.

He believes Luna likely chased a squirrel up the tree, which was angled just enough to make it possible for an agile dog to climb.

‘[She probably] realized, ‘I made a ginormous mistake,'” he said, adding that he believes Luna has “learned her lesson” from the incident.

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