Djibouti, Africa -- A girl here is still holding out hope that a dog lost over the Hoover Dam in Nevada may have been found.
Linking on her website to what appears to be a photograph from a family vacation photo album, her web page shows an image of a dog chasing a Frisbee over the edge of the Hoover Dam, with a man, presumably his owner, watching in horror as his dog falls 726 feet to his presumably untimely end.
Calls to the Hoover Dam visitor center to find out more about the dog in the photo have gone unanswered, but Marvin Hagworth, spokesman for the Bureau of Reclamation (which operates the dam) made these comment:
At a height of over seven hundred twenty feet, it's unlikely that a dog would survive the fall. In fact, he probably would land on one of the many structures at the bottom of the dam, rather than landing in the water, what with the prevailing winds and the apparent velocity of the dog in the photo, and those structures are made of concrete, so it wouldn't be a soft landing.
I've personally checked with the Dam operators, and they told me that there have been no reports of lost dogs at the Dam, nor any reports of animal carcasses appearing near the base of the dam."
Some animal rights groups have voiced their concern that the Frisbee may have been deliberately thrown over the edge of the dam, citing statistics that most dogs taken on family vacations are then abandoned hundreds or thousands of miles from home. Such a possibility cannot be ruled out at this time.
Spokesman Hagworth could not comment on whether the Hoover Dam visitor center would soon be ordering new warning signs for the visitor areas atop the dam, advising visitors not to throw any Frisbees or old tennis balls. Any such developments, Hagworth assured us, will be made available to the media.
The Djibouti girl, pictured at right, remains cautiously optimistic about the dog's fate. With no definitive evidence of the dog's whereabouts, she says, it's too early to jump to any conclusions.
