Dog survives brush with vacuum

Owner shares scary "tail" of pup's predicament

BALLWIN, Mo. (KYMA/NBC News) - Police rush to the rescue after a small dog gets into big trouble with a vacuum cleaner.

Stonewall is an elderly shih tzu who's personality lives up to his name.

"You could be walking towards him and he'll just sit there. He's not gonna go anywhere haha," says his owner, Megan Dunavant.

Stonewall's rigid attitude got him into trouble Friday night while Megan was doing her chores.

"Thought oh I'll get the vacuum going in these three rooms before company tomorrow morning." Megan told us.

The robotic vacuum got to work, but Stonewall wasn't doing anything or going anywhere. Megan knew something was wrong when the vacuum came to a complete halt right beside her obviously disturbed dog.

"I bend down to turn it back on and he kind of whimpers at me and I think that's.. ok... and then I was like oh no, you're in it." Megan recalls.

The vacuum had sucked up Stonewall's tail.

"He's alligator rolling trying to get loose and freaking out" says Megan.

She says Stonewall wasn't the only one freaking out.

"I'm all alone, this is awful, this is like something out of a movie, you can't make this up."

Megan says she didn't know what to do, so she called 9-1-1.

"This is a first for that." said one officer.

"Every day life throws some wild wrenches at people." said the other.

The two decided the situation called for both creativity and team work.

"It was kind of like a 1, 2, 3, he's covered, you flip this over, you take the flashlight."

"Teamwork"

"Yeah"

Eventually they realized only Stonewall's fur was trapped in the vacuum. They carefully cut him free.

"So it couldn't have gone better."

Megan says the next time she decides to clean, she'll put Stonewall in his kennel just to be safe.

"I don't want to have to call 911 again to get him out of the vacuum cleaner."