SAN JOSE — After pulling a 3-month-old Labrador out of an Evergreen neighborhood storm drain Saturday night, San Jose police Lt. Greg Lombardo and officers Dennis Herman and Gurbaksh Sohal went door-to-door in search of the puppy’s owner. After knocking on several doors on Sebastian Borello Drive and coming up empty, Sohal shared a thought with Lombardo.
“Hey LT, if we don’t find the owner, can I keep him?” Sohal recalls asking.
The three officers pulled the puppy out of a storm drain in a neighborhood near South White and Aborn roads at about 10 p.m. after Lombardo, who was on patrol, heard the sounds of an animal crying. Lombardo got out of his patrol car, pointed his flashlight down a storm drain on and spotted the puppy about 5 feet down, behind the iron bars of a storm drain.
Lombardo called Herman and Sohal to help get the puppy out.
The officers first tried to pick the dog up, but it was scared and kept scurrying halfway into a drain pipe, which is about 1½ feet wide, Sohal said.
Thinking the puppy might be hungry, the officers tried luring him out with some turkey. The puppy sniffed the turkey but didn’t bite.
“We don’t know how long it’s been in there,” Sohal said. “We’re sure it’s terrified.”
So the officers came up with a plan: Leon reached down inside the drain as Sohal held him from the back of his belt. Leon grabbed the dog and pulled him out.
The puppy was not wearing a collar or any other tag to identify an owner, so the officers did a door-to-door search through the neighborhood, looking for the owner or if anyone knew a neighbor who had a puppy.
The officers took the dog to the United Emergency Animal Clinic, a 24-hour veterinarian, in South San Jose. The puppy has since been taken to the San Jose Animal Care Center on Monterey Road.
Sohal, who grew up with a black Lab and has been thinking about getting a dog, has already filed paperwork to adopt the puppy if no owner claims it. The owner has until Thursday to claim the puppy, Garcia said.
“Dogs have always been a part of family,” Sohal said. “Hopefully we find the owners. If not, I’ll be more than happy to give that puppy a new home.”
Contact Mark Gomez at 408-920-5869 and follow him at Twitter.com/MarkMgomez.
