Labrador Penny hauled from waterfall gorge ledge in volunteer-led rescue

A dog left stranded on a narrow rock ledge at the foot of a 40ft (12m) cliff beside a Yorkshire waterfall has been returned safely to its owners after a rope rescue by a volunteer-run charity working alongside the fire and rescue service.

The incident at Pecca Falls, near Ingleton, was reported at 15:15 BST on Saturday, and was attended by the Yorkshire Dales-based Cave Rescue Organisation (CRO) together with North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service. The falls are among the best-known sights in the Yorkshire Dales and attract walkers, scramblers and dog owners throughout the year.

The dog, an eight-year-old Labrador called Penny, had gone into the river and subsequently climbed part-way out of it, ending up wedged on a rocky outcrop about 6.5ft (2m) above the waterline. Although no longer in the river itself, the shelf of rock offered no obvious escape route, with the cliff face rising steeply above her and fast-flowing water running below.

Her position was precarious. In a gorge setting such as this, a fall or a slip on a confined ledge can send an animal back into the current, and the wet, steep surroundings make a stranded dog difficult to reach with anything other than rope access. Penny was also some 12m from the top of the cliff, far beyond the reach of anyone on foot.

To reach her, rescuers set up a rope system above. A volunteer was lowered down the face to reach the ledge where the Labrador was stranded, while other team members worked the ropes from above. Once the dog had been reached and secured, she was hauled back up the gorge and reunited with her owners.

Support also came from the fire service's Ripon swiftwater rescue team, which provided cover on the water below and downstream from the point where Penny had become trapped. The presence of a dedicated swiftwater team is standard practice for incidents of this kind, as it allows the rope team to concentrate on the cliff while specialists watch for hazards in the flow itself.

The Cave Rescue Organisation is based in Clapham and covers the Yorkshire Dales National Park, with its work extending into neighbouring parts of Lancashire and Cumbria. The charity was formed in 1935 and today has more than 80 volunteers who regularly take part in mountain and cave rescues, as well as assisting with other public service incidents.

As a volunteer organisation, the CRO operates on call-outs rather than a permanent full-time roster, with members giving their time to training and to attending incidents at short notice. That model is what allowed a team of rope-access volunteers to be at the gorge within hours of the dog being reported, alongside an emergency service with its own specialist water capability.

Pecca Falls itself comprises five cascades that together drop more than 30m (98ft), stepping down through a narrow rocky gorge near Ingleton. The scale and confined shape of the site help explain why a dog in difficulty there cannot simply be reached from the bank or the path above.

Saturday's call was not the first time the charity has had to intervene at the same location. In March, rescuers used a comparable rope and pulley arrangement to free a dog that had fallen some 26.2ft (8m) and also come to rest on a narrow ledge. That repeat visit to the same falls in the space of a few months has prompted suggestions that the site presents a recurring hazard to pets.

Dogs off leads near water and steep ground can quickly end up in trouble that their owners are unable to reach or manage, and a rescue of this kind is far more costly — and more dangerous for the animal — than keeping a dog under control in the first place. Experts in outdoor safety routinely advise keeping dogs on leads around gorges, waterfalls and fast-flowing rivers, where the terrain offers no safe exit for an animal that slips.

The story also illustrates the wider demand on volunteer rescue teams, who are routinely called to incidents involving pets as well as people, and who must balance those call-outs with their core mountain and cave duties. Several similar cases have featured in recent regional coverage, including a dog freed from a rabbit hole after two days and another pulled from a small gap in moorland.

Penny's return, however, ended the latest of them on a high note. After being lowered to the ledge and secured, she was raised back up the gorge by the Cave Rescue Organisation volunteers and handed over to the people who had reported her missing, safe but very likely unimpressed by the adventure that had taken her to the base of a Yorkshire cliff.