DOGGED CAVERS SAVE MIRACLE MUTT!

Underground pooch went months on nothing but puddles of water

CAVERS saved the life of a deepdiving dog that was stranded 500 feet underground after getting lost in a subterranean maze TWO MONTHS earlier! The 13-year-old mixedbreed mutt named Abby managed to hang on by lapping at water that puddled at the bottom of the Tom Moore caves south of St. Louis, Mo. — but by the time rescuers discovered her, the skin-and-bones bowser was too weak to walk, wag her tail or even whimper.

Abby had been missing for 62 days, and owner Jeff Bohnert says he had given up all hope of seeing his precious pooch again — until stunned spelunkers Gerry Keene and Rick Haley chanced upon her! “It was heartbreaking to see this and think about how she endured,” says Haley. “It was evident by inspection of her she hadn’t eaten in a very long time!”

The courageous canine rescuers led a 90-minute mission to gently pry the elderly pooch from the mud, snuggle her in a duffel bag, and return her to the surface. “Abby was just trying to stay as comfortable as she could, which was hard down there because it’s very wet and it’s 58 degrees or so,” explains Haley.

Now that Abby is in the arms of her overjoyed human, she is slowly “getting back to herself!”