ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – An East Mountain family says they cannot thank Bernalillo County deputies enough for saving their dog after it was stuck in a hole for more than a day.

“Ava” is a friendly 8-year-old Huskey. She’s the oldest of three dogs in the Nipp household, and she gave her family quite the scare the other month while they were out of town on vacation. 

They got that dreaded call from the dog sitter.

“She said that Ava had had gone missing. She let them out for their potty break after dinner, and the boys came back, and she didn’t,” said Julieann Nipp, Ava’s owner. 

“I felt responsible, and I could find not a trace of Ava, she just disappeared,” said Kathy Mohar, dog sitter. 

Mohar combed the multiple acres of land looking for Ava into the night, but it wasn’t until the next morning did she get a clue as to where the dog went.

“I let the boys down after they had dinner. And Shadow walked over to the edge by the tree and cocked his head, and then went the other way. And I thought well, that’s unusual,” said Mohar. 

She went outside, moved the branches of the tree, and found Ava nearly 13 feet underground in a hole. 

“I ran inside and called Julie and Willie,” said Nipp.

“She called us later that day and said, ‘I found her, I found Ava.’ And she’s like, ‘That’s the great news, but then I don’t have some good news either,’” Mohar said.

They couldn’t get Ava out. The Nipps and Mohar called more neighbors and friends who came over, shovels in hand, and got to work.

“To dig that hole deep enough for me to comfortably get down into was probably another three or four hours worth of work,” said Bob Guarnieri, a neighbor. 

But even that wasn’t enough. Eventually, they called the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office.

“I definitely expected it to be like a water well type of thing and not, you know, down and then into the ground as well. So that made it a little more tricky once we got there,” said BCSO Deputy Lucas Drennan. 

30 hours after Ava got stuck, she was finally pulled free.

“We finally just kind of went within, I went all the way and tried to grab it around the neck, and he held me by my vest,” said Drennan.

Nipp says they can’t thank the deputies enough.

“Was the most wonderful thing. Thank God Ava was OK,” said Nipp.

Willie Nipp has since built a barricaded, and covered the hole to make sure Ava, or one of their other dogs, never gets stuck down there again.