A family day out at a popular beauty spot almost turned to tragedy when a dog plunged more than three metres onto rocks.
Christine Orr, from Harrogate, could only look on in horror as her six-year-old Labradoodle Monty jumped over a wall at Linton Falls in the North Yorkshire National Park.
She feared her beloved pet was dead as she witnessed the sickening impact and scrambled down and waded into the water to try and reach him.
Amazingly although Monty had survived, he had shattered his spine and, after being aided by fire rescue crews, needed urgent veterinary care.
He was stabilised and transferred to Swift Referrals in Wetherby where the team confirmed the spinal damage and that he needed major reconstructive surgery.
Christine and partner Mark were walking round a loop of the pretty limestone waterfalls falls at Grassington when the drama happened.
“Monty just walks beside us and never jumps anything, so he was off the lead,” said Christine. “But without any warning he launched himself over the wall at the viewing platform.
“I saw him smash into the rock face and then it was a sheer drop into the water.
“I thought he was dead, and my scream was so loud a lady in a nearby house came out to see what was going on.”
Christine ran down to the riverbank, waded in and swam out to rescue Monty. She was relieved to see he was alive and trying to reach her, although only paddling with his front paws.
“When I got him onto a rock, I knew right away something was badly wrong as his back end was down and he couldn’t stand up properly,” said Christine.
Mark and onlookers helped pull them onto the bank, and North Yorkshire Fire & Rescue Service arrived to get Monty carefully to the couple’s car.
They rushed him to Kingsway Vets in Skipton who treated him initially.
Realising he needed major surgery, they arranged for him to be transferred to Swift Referrals, a specialist veterinary centre that can carry out advanced and complicated procedures.
“When Monty came in, he had a number of injuries and was obviously in a lot of discomfort,” said Surgical Clinician, Rhys Treharne. “We did CT and MRI scans to work out what was wrong, and they pinpointed a fracture to his spine and also a tendon rupture to his pelvis.
“If we hadn’t operated the fracture could have got much worse, so we went ahead with surgery and put in plates with screws to repair it. A few days later we carried out another surgery to fix the rupture."
“He made a really good recovery from both procedures and was quickly up and walking again. He was really lucky not to have done even more damage after such a nasty fall and it’s nice to see him doing so well.”
Christine was finally able to collect Monty after about 10 days and was amazed at his recovery.
“He walked out wagging his tail and I couldn’t believe he looked so well,” said Christine. “It was such a soul destroying thing to go through and I’ve never cried so much over an animal.
“We’re so grateful for the amazing work Swift Referrals did. We had to restrict Monty’s exercise at first and he still has physio and hydrotherapy every week to build him up and make sure he doesn’t get arthritis.
“But he’s pretty much fully back to his usual crazy self, although we make sure to keep him on the lead now.”
