Dog rescued after frightening fall on Superior Hiking Trail

Bogi the springer spaniel is an amped-up dog with a taste for adventure.

"He’s really trouble," his co-owner, Amanda Farrell, said.

"We got very, very lucky," adds co-owner Julian Stanke.

So when Farrell and Stanke wanted to check out an overlook on the Superior Hiking Trail last Sunday, Bogi, just a year-and-a-half old, and his co-pet, Ted the pit bull mix, had to come along.

"We should have known that trouble was going to happen," Farrell says. "But we just wanted to get the dogs out before dinner."

Then, it happened.

"We wanted to take some pictures of the overlook, so we tied the dogs up to the tree and went to take our photo," Stanke recalls. "When we got back, we unhooked the dogs so we could get the leashes off the tree and Bogi took the opportunity to run."

Bogi had simply vanished.

Farrell and Stanke searched for an hour and a half.

Then they heard a yelp from a cliff edge.

"We went over to the edge, she on one side, me on the other," Stanke says. "And as we called over, we could see him about 30-35 feet below us. He was fine, standing around walking responsive barking at us."

With no way to get down the sheer cliffside, Stanke called 911 and put out an appeal on social media.

But by now, it was raining, and with darkness approaching, nobody could help right away.

"We made the really tough call to return to the cabin and regroup and get some better gear and see what we could find for help and come back in the morning," Stanke remembers.

"I was trying to reassure Julian that everything would be OK when we came back in the morning and thank goodness it was. I wasn’t sure myself," Farrell adds.

Then came along Minnesota Conservation Officer Mary Manning, who responded to Stanke’s Facebook appeal, and showed up cliffside the next morning with her climbing gear.

"I knew the area, I knew the location, and I had an idea where the dog might be," Manning says. "It’s a lot easier to pull a 50-pound dog up the side of a hill than it is a 150-pound person."

So the three of them decided to have Stanke take the plunge.

"So I just lowered Julian down to him with some equipment to get the dog hooked up, and we got the dog in a separate safety line, so I could pull the dog up the hill and pass him onto Amanda," Manning explains.

Bogi had one scratch on his leg, but he’s recovering nicely.

His human mom and dad say Manning is their hero.

"She truly saved the day because we were going to attempt doing it ourselves, and with just a rope," Farrell said. "We would’ve gotten hurt for sure. If it wasn’t for Mary, we might not have gotten Bogi out that day."

After their big adventure, this dog-loving family is back together, safe and sound.

With quite a tale to tell.

"When you think about it, it’s pretty terrifying. We’re lucky that all he had was a scratch," Farrell declares. "We got our silly dog back."