The Fortin household in scottsdale, Ariz. was relatively peaceful on Sunday morning. Chaos hit around noon.
When Fortin was folding laundry, her son ran up the stairs and yelled "Is Bruce up there?"
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Bruce is the Fortin family's beloved 1-year-old French bulldog, named after Bruce Wayne from "Batman." They have a sulcata tortoise named Bianca, which is named after the female lead in the 1977 Disney film "The Rescuers".
Fortin, her husband, and their two children began searching for Bruce, but he was nowhere to be found. The family of four started to panic.
Fortin said they assumed the worst, that he might have been stolen from their backyard.
The Fortins were in action. They went door-to-door in their neighborhood, hoping that Bruce would come back to them. They filed a police report as well.
Fortin decided to do a second scans of the house after no luck. She heard a muffled barking sound when she got to the backyard, but couldn't figure out where it was coming from. Her eyes looked over to Bianca's burrow.
Fortin said he could hear Bruce barking from under the ground as he approached the tortoise burrow.
The family later learned that the dog was in the tortoise burrow, which is six feet deep and nearly three feet wide.
Tortoises dig burrows to regulate their body temperature. African spurred tortoises dig extensive dens which can run as deep as 20 feet underground.
Hearing Bruce's bark gave both relief and terror.
Fortin said that they feared Bianca was blocking Bruce from exiting the cave and that they had no idea how to get him out.
Fortin said that the tortoise wasn't coming out because she didn't want to be with him.
When their son tried to descend into the burrow, he confirmed that the dog was trapped by the tortoise. The family decided to back up.
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President Biden said in a meeting with the Federal Emergency Management Agency that he would raise the hourly pay for federal firefighters.
They reached out to a tortoise rescue organization that was closed on a Sunday. The next call was to the fire dept.
Fortin had no idea who to call or what to do.
She was told to remove her son from the burrow immediately after she explained the situation to the dispatch. The firefighters arrived at the scene within 10 minutes.
Three other firefighters were confused by the situation and showed up with a fire captain.
"I couldn't believe it when I read the dispatch," he said. It was one of the strangest animal rescues I've ever been called to.
The four firefighters tried to come up with a plan. They were at a loss because they had never encountered a situation in which a small dog was trapped by a large tortoise.
"You could hear the panic in the dog's bark, and it made the little girl start to cry, because the pressure was on," he said. "That broke our hearts."
"We decided to stay even though we didn't know what we were going to do," he said.
They considered digging into the burrow, but they were worried that it would collapse, which would have had dire consequences for both animals. They contacted a wildlife expert for more information.
The president of the Phoenix Herpetological Sanctuary received an urgent call for help.
Johnson has seen a lot in his career, but he has never had a dog go into a tortoise hole.
He said that Bruce might not be the best dog out there, and that they wouldn't put him in the top 10 of the class.
Everyone involved in the incident was breaking new ground.
Johnson's biggest concern was that the tortoise could be killed by the dog. He had a good idea of what to do to save the animals.
He told the firefighters to dig carefully, using shovels and a pickax, to keep the structural components of the tunnel intact.
The scene remained tense even though they had a plan in place.
The dog that the firefighters believe had been underground for nearly three hours suddenly stopped barking about 40 minutes after the firefighters arrived. Fortin brought her children inside.
The captain looked at her and said, "We are going to do what we can to give the dog the best chance." I was worried that our dog could get buried in front of my kids and ruin their lives.
A few moments later, "we were praying and crying, and my husband came running in, yelling, 'Get out here!'"
The tortoise was prodded to look out to see what was happening. Bruce came out of the burrow after they caught Bianca.
Fortin said she was happy and mad when she recounted the escapade on her social media accounts.
The firefighters said the endeavor was very rewarding and everyone was overjoyed with hugs, tears and smiles.
"We were happy," he said. We don't want to disappoint people, especially children.
Fortin and her kids baked cookies for the fire department and neighbors who helped after Bruce was rescued from the reptile, after the family and their pets had a good time.
We're so thankful to them. Fortin said that the firefighters saved the day.
The dog is alive because of them. It could have been terrible. The firefighters did a great job.
The near catastrophe had a happy ending.
Bruce was hyper after exiting the hole.
Fortin hired a dog trainer to teach him that Bianca's burrow is not his Batcave, even though he's named after Bruce Wayne.
Fortin said they would make sure it didn't happen again.
Fortin said that it was a good story, and that it was quite a memorable afternoon.
How many people can say that they called the fire department to save their dog, who was trapped by their tortoise in their backyard?
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