San Francisco Dog Rescued in Caltrain Tunnel Has New Leash on Life

A runaway dog is back home safe after spending two days in a San Francisco Caltrain tunnel.

Caltrain crews who spotted a dog inside a rail tunnel near 16th and Mississippi streets assumed he was dead until one of them saw the dog lift his head, said Deb Campbell, a spokesperson for San Francisco Animal Care and Control. That sent two of the agency’s officers into the tunnel with the flashlights on their phones. 

Animal Control Officers Bri Borg and Stephanie Pone found the dog, Roo, huddled against a wall. He had been there close to two days, Campbell said, as trains passed by him. 

“First, he was terrified to see them,” she said. “Then, he was absolutely thrilled and happy.”

The agency had already been looking for him. Roo’s owner, who had adopted him recently, called before anyone reported seeing anything in the tunnel and said the dog had been spooked and taken off running. 

“Not many people think to look in the Caltrain tunnel for their dog,” Campbell said. 

Roo was unsteady on his feet and had gone without food or water, so the officers drove him to SAGE Veterinary Centers, a 24-hour clinic that contracts with the agency. He was not seriously dehydrated and was cleared the same day. 

The dog was microchipped. Campbell said the agency scans every animal it brings in, and that plenty of the chips it finds were never linked to an owner, which turns a phone call into days of tracing. 

“We get a lot of animals that have microchips, but nobody has gone and registered them,” she said, adding that registering one takes a few minutes. 

Tunnel rescues are not unusual for the agency, which has pulled animals out of BART and Muni tunnels before, and has had trains stopped for dogs that hunkered down and would not move. 

What made Roo’s case different was how long he was in the tunnel. 

“Thankfully, the Caltrain people were very alert and on it and noticed this,” Campbell said.