The pitfalls of being Pete

Remember the cliche Lassie bit where little Timmy falls into the well and Lassie goes for help, barking excitedly until rescuers follow her to pull the hapless kid to safety?
Ruthie the Wonder Dog had just such an opportunity this morning, but she failed miserably. But then, it was Pete the Aussie - her constant companion and frequent tormentor - who needed rescuing. So maybe she chose to ignore his plight so as to be rid of him.
I had finished my workout at the gym when I checked my cell phone and found I had missed a call from Maria. I called her and she got me up to speed on the progress, or rather the lack of it, on our garage project. The two-man crew had filled the dumpster by 11:30 a.m. and, since the trash hauler couldn't get a fresh one to our site before this evening, Maria cut them loose. That's another half-day down the toilet because of inadequate dumpster service. And, she said, Pete had gone Walkabout and was nowhere to be found. We figured he would show up eventually, so I opted to shower, bank my paycheck and grab a bite of lunch before heading home.
When I got back to my locker from the showers, my cell phone was ringing again. It was Maria, saying she had found Pete. He'd fallen into the open cistern that we uncovered a couple of weeks ago when we tore out the rotting wooden deck behind the house. The previous owners had dumped great shards of broken glass and other construction debris into it and we tossed in whatever rocks and bricks fell to hand in an effort to fill it. I covered it with a piece of drywall that I found in the garage. That worked fine until it rained. It soaked up the water and went soft and mushy. Pete had apparently assumed it was still a solid surface and fell through. Maria said she noticed the hole in the drywall and peered down to find Pete gazing balefully up at her.
He hadn't barked or done anything else to attract her attention.
Ruthie, in the meantime, was larking around the back yard and taking no notice whatsoever of her young friend's plight.
Maria called her dad and he came over, held her by the ankles and she reached down and plucked Pete from the pit. She said he was subdued, but apparently uninjured.