MOXEE, Wash. (AP) -- 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 near Moxee, Wash., on Wednesday 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.

The Yakima Herald-Republic reports ( http://bit.ly/qeSqju ) 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.