A hair-raising cliffside stranding ended with a paw-sitive outcome last week when a Vashon Island Fire & Rescue (VIFR) team rescued a dog stranded on a ledge near KVI beach.

The rescue happened March 12, after Kirby, a curious 2-and-a-half year old, went over a slope at KVI and ended up on a narrow strip of plateau — craggy cliff face above and below him.

Amy Carey, a co-founder of island animal rescue and welfare organization Haven, got a call from Haley Odegard, who was visiting the beach that day and had come across the emergency situation. Carey could hear a dog, distressed, in the background of the call.

Odegard was in the right place at the right time, took the initiative to get help, and helped keep Kirby calm in the meantime, Carey said: “It was quite remarkable. … She was really Kirby’s guardian angel. … He was frantic. He was thinking about ways to go up, or down. She’d tell him to sit, stay calm.”

Carey and a few other Haven members rushed to the beach and reached out to the fire department, who arrived as Haven members did.

Seven members of VIFR, including Fire Chief Matt Vinci, were present for the rescue, Vinci said. Firefighters evaluated the geography with the help of a drone and determined that their only real option to rescue Kirby — who was 100 feet down, but still up too high for a rescue from the beach — was coming in from above and lowering the dog down.

The crew had the training, tools and skill to pull off the rescue, which was an operation that carried some risk, Vinci said.

Photo by Milo Bailey Vashon Island Fire and Rescue Lieutenant Ben Steele kneels next to Kirby, the dog that Steele and his VIFR crew rescued from a cliff at KVI beach last week.

Over the next couple of hours, Haven and other community members reassured Kirby as firefighters planned and executed their rescue, and helped keep other people from getting too close, Carey said.

“It’s an incredibly sheer bluff,” Carey said. “But it was also really brushy at the top, so it was complex for (VIFR) to do. … It was precarious. There were a couple of times where your heart stops.”

They asked Kirby’s owner owner Lois Schwennesen, who was stricken over Kirby’s situation, to do a “very hard” job of her own, Carey said: Move away and trust that the rescuers could pull it off. Schwennesen’s presence risked being “too much” for Kirby and agitating him, Carey said.

Lieutenant Ben Steele rappelled down the cliff’s side, reached Kirby and harnessed him in, holding on as the team helped both of them down to the beach. Steele navigated the cliff side “gracefully,” Vinci said, and met a very happy, tail-wagging Kirby.

“Kirby didn’t struggle, he didn’t panic, he just kind of stepped into his role with Ben,” said Carey. “When they got down close enough, they let him off lead … and he came running to his owner, and then of course, right back to Ben.”

The VIFR team pulled off the rescue highly competently and efficiently, Schwennesen said. She also praised the work of Haven and the community, who kept the scene coordinated and focused: “If there’s a definition of community, that was it,” she said.

It was “the best of this community, people dropping in, working together, doing their part, and creating this happy ending,” Carey said.

“I’m really proud of the work our staff did,” Vinci said. “They’re true professionals. This is highly technical, labor-intensive work they pulled off, and Kirby’s doing well as a result of it.”

Kirby likes hanging out with hardy workers like surveyors and construction workers, she said, and it seemed like he bonded with the VIFR crew, Schwennesen said.

“I feel like he just trusted (them) in a way that I found amazing to watch,” she said. “He was complete trust and calmness. … He just loves those guys.”

How, exactly, curious Kirby landed himself in the cliff side predicament is still something of a mystery. Vinci and Carey both said there was no way he could have climbed up the cliff. Vinci suspects Kirby must have somehow come down from above.

Rope rescue operations like Kirby’s aren’t common, but they happen on occasion for VIFR, Vinci said. Island terrain provides plenty of cliff-flanked beaches where such procedures are sometimes needed, and he said people should exercise caution in those areas.

Carey concurred: “Having been long involved in rescue out here, it’s amazing how many times we’ve had dogs go over a slope.”

Photo by Milo Bailey Vashon Island Fire and Rescue Lieutenant Ben Steele holds Kirby, a two-year-old American Indian dog, as he and his crew rescue the dog from a cliff at KVI beach last week.