Dog falls into 16-foot-deep hole; survival is 'truly a miracle'

ORLANDO, Fla. - Sometimes in life, if you're lucky, you may come to love someone so deeply that you refuse to give up _ even when reason and family and friends all say it's time to let go.

So it was for Angela Surguine and her beloved dachshund, Sophia.

On June 7, after a long day of working in the yard of their 5-acre spread near Clermont, Fla., Sophia didn't come in for supper. Angela knew something was very wrong.

Sophia had never run away in all her seven years. Maybe, said Angela's husband, Jim, the dark-haired pup had wandered near the front gate and someone had snatched her.

Maybe, Angela feared, a snake had bitten her and she was lying under some bush, too weak to bark.

They searched into the night to no avail. They searched all the next day.

Angela printed up fliers with Sophia's picture. She knocked on doors. She started calling nearby animal shelters.

But Sunday and Monday came and went, and still no Sophia.

Angela Surguine, 50, prayed.

"I just felt like God was telling me, 'Don't give up. You're going to find her. I know how much she means to you.' "

Suddenly, a bark from underground

Late the following Tuesday morning, Angela went outside to make sure the pool sweeper hadn't gotten stuck on the filter, as it sometimes did. Standing in the quiet, she thought she heard a moan.

She listened more closely. There it was again.

It seemed to be coming from a hole in the ground _ one of several dug by gopher tortoises. Angela and her husband already had checked every hole they could find, but this time when Angela knelt down and called Sophia's name, she heard a bark.

Soon, Angela's two sons-in-law, her husband and her neighbors were all digging. The tortoises' hole, it turned out, was a labyrinth of tunnels.

"Should we call 911?" someone suggested.

Instead, Angela called Lake County Animal Services. Before long, assistant director Rene Segraves and one of her officers were helping her dig, too. Then a neighbor called a neighbor who had a Bobcat, a machine that could dig far faster than the humans.

"We were out there all afternoon," Segraves said. "I was probably still calling 'Sophia! Sophia! Come to me!' in my sleep. My husband probably thought, 'Oh, she's cheating on me with another woman.' "

Alas, after six hours of digging, after creating a gaping 12-foot crater, after endangering the foundation of their swimming pool, and even after losing a tree and a wide swath of their garden, optimism started to fade. After all, Angela had been the only one to claim to hear Sophia, and some privately wondered if perhaps, in her grief, she had just imagined it.

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The neighbors went home. The family thanked Segraves and sent her off. Everyone went inside for dinner.

Everyone except Angela.

ZOE TO THE RESCUE

Holly Tweed arrived shortly after 6 p.m. to pick up her son, who stays most days with Angela, his grandmother. She saw everyone eating, everyone except her mother, who was still out in the evening heat, digging.

She had pitched in to buy Sophia as a birthday present seven years earlier. She knew how much her mom adored that little dog. So she offered to help.

"But when I saw the size of the hole," Tweed said, "I thought, 'This is crazy.' "

Just then, somebody happened to let Angela's other dog, Zoe, outside. As she ran, Zoe's name tag and license jingled. Somewhere, deep below the earth, the noise must have reached desperate ears.

Little Sophia started to bark.

Tweed took off Zoe's collar and started jangling it. Sophia barked some more.

Everyone returned from the house and started digging again. Clint Aiello, Angela's son-in-law, used his hands, fearing he might strike the dog with a shovel. After two hours, he felt a nose. He reached in and pulled Sophia out.

The family cheered. Angela fell to her knees. Sophia, with a face full of dirt, ran to Zoe and started licking her.

Sophia was dehydrated and a bit traumatized. Angela stayed up with her all night, making her drink every half-hour and cooking her bacon at 2:30 a.m. so Sophia would eat.

A vet pronounced her healthy.

A very relieved Segraves _ who hadn't been able to eat or sleep that night _ said a prayer of thanks.

"I have never, ever heard of a dog surviving for that long or that deep," Segraves said. "She must have been about 16 feet down. None of us expected that little dog to be found alive. Not only was she alive; she was healthy. It is truly a miracle."

Precisely, Angela said.

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© 2008, The Orlando Sentinel (Fla.).