Former cowboy lassos dogs in canal

A farmworker who says he learned how to lasso 30 years ago while working on a cattle ranch in Mexico still knows his ropes. Jesus Villanueva was working when he heard a disturbance along the Roza irrigation canal. A woman and her husband were trying to save their two dogs being swept away in the current. The dogs couldn’t climb up the steep concrete sides of the canal. A Yakima sheriff’s deputy had a rope but was having no luck. It took Villanueva just one lasso for each dog to bring them ashore. Noya Deats had run nearly three miles along the canal, trying to save her dogs while calling her husband and the sheriff’s office for help. Despite signs warning folks to stay out of the canal, Deats said she has let her dogs, Fawn and Nia, off their leash before without any problems. But when they decided to take a swim they were swept away. More