Rachel Manley suspects it was a thick grove of blackberry bushes that helped keep her missing dog ‘Lulu’ alive for four days after she fell down a cliff. Sadly, Lulu, the missing hairless Chinese crested dog , whose story gripped a community, succumbed to dehydration and hypothermia, just hours after being rescued.
“You know, honestly, that stupid blackberry bush might have saved her life from predators, because she could have gotten eaten alive, but she didn't,” said Manley, who adds the 13-year-old dog’s discovery and rescue was nothing short of a miracle.
Manley, friends, family and numerous community members had been searching for Lulu ever since she went missing Saturday, June 22, from a dog sitter’s home. Manley added Lulu was with a dog sitter for the first time because she and her (now) husband Jim Williamson got married on Saturday at Porpoise Bay and family members staying at an Airbnb in Halfmoon Bay arranged for Lulu to be with the sitter for the day. Manley said it’s suspected Lulu somehow managed to slip through a screen door, which wasn’t fully secured.
On the evening of Wednesday, June 26, Manley was out looking once again in the Coopers Green area, this time joined by her friend Corrine Dempsey. When an exhausted Manley decided to go home just before 8 p.m., Dempsey decided to take one last walk along the beach and that’s when she heard what she described as a “yipping,” sound coming from the bottom of a cliff. The blackberries were so thick, Dempsey couldn’t say for sure if the sound was coming from Lulu, but she phoned Manley, who raced back to the area with her two sons, Orion and Cyrus.
“I don't know how she ended up in there, or how that one person just happened to go there. I bawled my eyes out because she's like, ‘I'm just going to have one more look.’ Thank God she did or I don’t think she would have ever been found,” said Manley. “The cliff was probably 20 or 25 feet high and she fell down that and into the blackberry bush and there was a log on her. She was so sick and she couldn't move, but there was this little ‘yep, yep.’ She was struggling, but she was calling for help.”
Manley said Cyrus made the dangerous climb down the cliff and confirmed it was Lulu, who at this point was missing her rainbow pajamas.
“I don’t even know how he did it, but he went from the top and when he got in there, he was like, ‘It is Lulu.’ She was pretty beat up, so he held her in her arms and he's like, ‘I can't get out of here.’ So, I called 911,” said Manley.
In response to her 911 call, members and volunteers from the Halfmoon Bay Fire Department, including Chief Ryan Daley, responded to the scene. Daley said he and everyone involved in the rescue was very sad to hear Lulu hadn’t made it through the night.
“But we were all happy that they got to say goodbye because, she’d been missing and they wouldn’t have had the chance. Now, at least she came home and they can say goodbye, which is pretty good,” said Daley, who was part of an eight-person team trained in rope rescue, which responded to the scene. He noted it was not a high angle rescue, but it was a “really steep bank” with lots of loose rocks, so rope rescue techniques were used to lift Lulu and Cyrus out. He noted the rescue took almost an hour, including using hedge trimmers to cut back the blackberry bushes.
“I was the one who went down the bank to assist her, so we put the dog in a duffle bag for safety and then I climbed up with the help of the ropes, handed off the dog and then I went back down to assist the son,” said Daley. “But she looked pretty rough, because she wasn't she in the best of health and she didn't have a lot of energy. I mean, she’d been out there for four days so she was probably cold and hungry so she didn’t have a lot of energy, but we were hoping for a better result.”
Daley noted Manley was initially reluctant to call 911 because she assumed there would no response to help a dog. He added, the family was lucky the situation wasn’t made worse by Cyrus climbing down the cliff unaided.
“I tell people that if there's a situation that’s unsafe for them to do a rescue, it’s better for them to call to maybe see who can help instead of trying to get themselves into a dangerous spot where they can be hurt as well,” said Daley. “Because what would have been really sad is if something really awful actually happened to Cyrus as well by falling down the hill.”
Daley said, like most people, members and volunteers with the Halfmoon Bay Fire Department love dogs and cats and are often very happy to help.
“We definitely love to help, especially if it's definitely going to eliminate somebody else getting hurt too,” said Daley. “We'd hate to see we that. Something bad could have happened here, but nothing did," He said. "They didn't think they should call for help for the dog but then they put themselves at risk. We don't want the community to put themselves at risk when we have tools and techniques that might be able to help."
Whether the fire department, search and rescue or RCMP, there's an agency that may be able to help.
Manley said the team from the Halfmoon Bay Fire Department were surprised the call involved Lulu, who by then had become almost a household name — and that she was actually alive.
“They couldn't believe it, it was like, it's impossible that we found her,” said Manley. “I couldn't believe it. It was a miracle. It really is a total miracle.”
Manley said as soon as Daley brought Lulu up the cliff, she was wrapped in a blanket and rushed to Sechelt Animal Hospital, where her vet was already waiting in response to a phone call.
“They got her on the warming bed really fast because she basically was showing zero temperature. Her blood pressure was really high. She was hypothermic and severely dehydrated,” said Manley. “As far as we know, she didn't have any broken bones and she was just as feisty as she ever was in there. They were trying to take her temperature with a thermometer and she tried to bite them but she had no teeth. But I just sat with her and pet her and she just calmly started to fall asleep.”
The vet told Manley, if Lulu made it through the night she’d have to be transferred to an animal emergency hospital in Vancouver for more intravenous treatments. Seeing the dog was resting peacefully, the family headed home and got to bed at around 2 a.m. It was just 15 minutes later they received the call from the hospital to return as soon as possible. Sadly, Lulu suffered cardiac arrest and passed away.
“You know, it was really hard on her and I just feel peace bringing her home. I was sick and never was going to stop worrying about her and not knowing so, she's coming home and we're going to bury her and plant a tree for her,” said Manley. “She's my little angel now.”
Manley would like to thank all of the volunteers who helped search for Lulu, sometimes in the middle of the night.
“I mean, this Coast community. Everyone has been along for the ride with me. This is the most wonderful and beautiful community I've ever lived in my life, the support, the love. I mean, I don't even want to tell everyone she died, because I know they're going to be just as sad as me.”
