A brave rescue pup embarked on its first mission, heroically saving a family’s missing dog that had been trapped in mud for two days.

It was a deeply emotional moment for both rescuers and the family when a lost dog named “Puppy” was found after 40 hours—thanks to Tino, a Search and Rescue dog on his very first mission.

Puppy, a massive 150-pound Great Pyrenees, went missing during a horseback ride with his owner, Karen James, in McCleary, Washington. After two days of frantic searching, his family reached out to Three Retrievers Lost Pet Rescue for help.

Tino, a trained Search and Rescue dog, was assigned by the nonprofit to track down Puppy.

Tino quickly caught Puppy’s scent and located him stuck in a muddy gully less than a mile from home, with only his head visible above the muck.

It took three rescuers working together to safely extract Puppy from the muddy trap. Three Retrievers Lost Pet Rescue praised Tino on Facebook, saying, “Tino did an outstanding job today, finding this senior dog stranded in the muck.”

“At first, Puppy’s back legs weren’t working, likely because he’d been trapped in the cold mud for hours,” they explained. “The forested area is vast, and without Tino’s help, Puppy’s family might never have found him.”

Afterward, Puppy was placed in a wagon and brought home, where his family was overjoyed to see him safe.

“He simply couldn’t get out of the muck,” James told Fox 13. “He was far enough off the trail that we wouldn’t have spotted him.”

“And there’s miles and miles of wilderness out there to search,” she added. “We would have never found him on our own.”

According to Three Retrievers Lost Pet Rescue, Tino had undergone 16 months of training, and this marked his first successful “Walk up find” on the job—a huge achievement!