Geri Skjersven felt that something wasn't right when she heard a dog whimpering while gardening outside her Lac La Biche, Alta. home.
"It was a different kind of whimper from a dog, it just didn't sound right," she told CTV News Channel on Wednesday.
As she was walking through a ditch while attempting to find the source of the whimper, Skjersven said she heard the noise coming from a culvert.
"I bent down to look under there, and there were two little eyes looking back at me," she said, describing her unexpected discovery Sunday. "I went home, grabbed a flash light, shined it in the culvert, and sure enough, it was a dog."
That dog was Koda, who had gone missing from a neighbour's home 13 days earlier.
Luckily for Koda, Skjersven and her husband run a company that does water and sewer work. The couple went into town to retrieve their backhoe, and, with some help from their neighbours and Koda's owners, they were able to free the dog.
Skjersven said following the rescue "there were hugs all around," but it was clear that Koda was in rough shape.
"He was very alert, his eyes were really bright, but he was pretty thin, he was all cramped up (and) he couldn't move."
But only a few days after his rescue, Koda is expected to make a full recovery.
"He's doing really good," Skjersven said. "Everything is just fine."
