Florida Dog Freed After Spending Two Days Stuck Beneath Home

— -- A Florida dog rescued by three Humane Society employees is home safe with her family after being lost for two days.

The dog, however, was really home with her family the whole time. She was stuck underneath the home and only discovered when her owner heard her whimpering.

“A call came into the shelter by a frantic gal who had lost her dog two days prior, thought her dog had run away and then suddenly heard it whimper under her floorboards,” Humane Society of Pinellas spokeswoman Twila Cole told ABC News.

Though the call came in at the end of the workday Monday, and digging dogs out from underneath homes is not, “a service we normally provide,” according to Cole , three Humane Society employees volunteered to go and try to rescue the dog at her Clearwater home.

“They couldn’t get in there with equipment so it was a lot of hand digging,” Cole said of the work done by her three coworkers, Shelby Ross, Maddy Ferguson and Abigail Kamleiter.

After two hours of digging in the Florida heat, the Humane Society staffers safely pulled the dog, a 35-pound Shepard mix named Abby, out from under the home and returned her to her happy owners, the Gagliardi family.

“They were just elated,” Cole said of the family, which includes a young daughter. “This was the best possible ending.”

“The dog is okay and safe and reunited,” she said.

After her rescue, the family discovered that Abby had accessed the area beneath their home through a very small opening in one of the home’s corners.

“The big takeaway is to remember that no matter how secure we think our backyards are, don’t leave your pets unattended,” Cole said.