posted June 01, 2011 10:40 AM            

Jessie, a 4-year-old Jack Russell terrier trapped for seven days under nearly 50 tons of rock has been freed. Her owner, Steve Porter, spent more than $2,000 to rescue the pup.

Jessie and Porter were rabbit hunting near their home in Australia when Jessie darted after a feral cat and became trapped 11 feet underground, beneath two boulders. Initially, Porter, along with his son and two neighbors, tried to pry Jessie free. When that effort was unsuccessful, they called the State Emergency Service--Australia's EMS--to lend a hand.

As rescuers gradually sought to pry Jessie loose, they also sustained her on bits of liver they sent down to her via a length of fencing wire. "It's a miracle, really, when you see the size of the rock and the location and how restricted we were," Porter told the Herald Sun.

After a week's efforts to pry Jessie loose, a rock-breaking truck hired in from Melbourne finally sprang her from captivity.

"Dogs are man's best friend," Porter told the Herald Sun. "We felt we owed it to her. The easiest thing to say was the dog would die or we could say let's give her a good hard go. And we did. We rallied together and we said 'We can do this.' Where there's hope, there is life."