Move over, Lassie and Rin Tin, and make room for Amos.

Amos’ story of survival against all odds has earned him the right to be listed among the country’s legendary dogs.

Amos is home now after eight days at the bottom of a 22-foot well in rattlesnake country in rural Pike County.

The story began when Amos followed a horseman into the woods and didn’t return.

Ashley Smith of the Corinth community said it was not uncommon for Amos, a five-year-old Jack Russell, to follow her husband, Stacy, into the woods when he was on horseback.

“Sometimes Amos would go into woods and not come back for some time,” Smith said. “So, that’s why, for a while, we didn’t realize that he was gone. When we did realize he was gone, we kept thinking he would come back soon.”

But when three days turned to four, the Smiths became very concerned.

“We knew then that something was wrong,” Smith said. “Our daughter, Carsyn, made flyers saying Amos was lost and took them around to our four neighbors’ houses in hopes that, maybe, they had seen him.”

Day five turned to day six and then seven and eight and hope that Amos would come home was all but gone.

But God works in wondrous ways, Smith said.

“A neighbor was mowing her lawn that runs right up to the wooded area behind her house,” Smith said. “Her mower quit and she was pushing it back to the house when she heard what sounded like a small dog barking. She probably wouldn’t have even noticed the barking except she remembered the flyer Carsyn had given her.”

The neighbor contacted the Smiths and Stacy Smith went immediately to check out the lead. He found Amos at the bottom of an abandoned well.

“There are a lot of snakes in that area and it was dark so it was rather dangerous getting to the well,” Ashley Smith said.

Working by the dim light of a flashlight, Stacy Smith tried to reach Amos with a hook on the end of a pipe. He hoped to hook Amos’ collar and pull him up but the pipe wasn’t long enough.

“I got a long extension cord and tied it to a tree,” he said. “I made a loop on the other end and dropped in down in the hole. The cord loop was on the ground. Amos moved toward it and put his head in the loop and I snatched it and pulled him right up. He didn’t have a scratch on him.”

And, Ashley, said she thought Amos would have chased his tail around in happiness or jumped on them in excitement but he didn’t.

“He didn’t even want to eat when we got to the house,” she said. “Amos spent eight days and nights in a 20-foot hole without food or water and he acted like nothing had happened. But, we were so glad to have him home that it didn’t matter how he acted.”

Stacy Smith said it was his guess that there must have been some water in the bottom of the well when Amos fell in.

“I don’t think that he could have survived eight days without water,” he said.

Not many animals could have survived in conditions like existed at the bottom of the well but then Amos is no ordinary dog.

All is well that ends well.