A black Border Collie helped lead search and rescue crews to his injured dog dad.
Authorities said Saul acted “in true ‘Lassie’ fashion.” The pup and his dog parent were hiking near California’s Tahoe National Forest when the 53-year-old man fell 70 feet from a ridge. He broke his hip and multiple ribs. His fate looked grim without the aid of medical personnel.
Saul to the Rescue
The injured hiker managed to crawl up a rocky bluff to his camp and called 911. About seven hours later, Nevada County Sheriff’s Search and Rescue group found Saul. “The dog jumped up and down, spun around in circles and ran 20 feet ahead of [the volunteers],” Sergeant Haack told the New York Times. Saul glanced back at the volunteers. Just like Lassie, he led them to the trouble.
Haack heard a volunteer say on the radio, “Hey, I think this dog is trying to lead us somewhere, so we’re going to follow him.” They followed Saul for about 200 yards. Lo and behold, they happened upon the injured man, “in pain but grateful for his loyal pet and the volunteers.”
The volunteers attributed the rescue to Saul’s quick actions. Saul is back with his dog dad. Sergeant Haack said he gave the real-life Lassie a beef jerky stick for being a good dog.
Do All Dogs Want to Save Humans?
While Saul pretty much replicated Lassie’s TV performance, scientists aren’t convinced that dogs “would go beyond focusing attention on humans in need by providing more substantive help to them.” However, they concluded in the study titled “Timmy’s in the well: Empathy and prosocial helping in dogs” that dogs are most likely to provide help to a human in need if they can focus on the human’s need instead of their own personal distress. The study also suggests that dogs’ behavior results from their predisposition for empathy.
