Coast guard staffers were having their morning meeting at the Frankfort Coast Guard station in Michigan on Tuesday when something urgent came up. Petty Officer 1st Class Kurt Lubbers saw a dog plunging into the icy water of a channel between Betsie Lake and Lake Michigan.
Braving the freezing waters, Petty Officer 3rd Class Tim Putnam and another rescuer suited into an ice rescue gear to help the stranded dog. It took Putnam nearly 20 minutes to get to the animal because of the broken chunks of ice in the water. After about 24 minutes and with help from other rescuers, the dog was safely taken out of the icy water.
"I had to push a lot of the ice out of the way, it was pretty exhausting," Putnam said adding that although he had seen the dog shivering, it tried to swim towards him. "It was almost like he knew it was his last chance. Luckily we got him out in time, it didn't look like he had too much left in him."
The dog, a female Labrador the rescuers called Betsie, was sent to the Animal Welfare League of Benzie County to recover. Despite its ordeal, it was in good health and is expected to make a full recovery.
Although the animal was not chipped or tagged, its owner was also located and a reunion was arranged. Putnam, however, has said that he and his wife have considered adopting the animal he rescued if its owner could not be found.
"Our crews stand ready to answer the call for help, even if it means crawling through 200 feet of slurpee-like ice," the Coast Guard wrote on Facebook. "Station Frankfort's ice rescue team saved this dog from the water because a life is a life and they wanted to make sure that they were the ones taking the risk of going in instead of an unprepared bystander."
The Coast Guard urges pet owners to keep a watchful eye on their animals particularly around ice. The unthinkable could have happened had Putnam and colleagues ignored the dog.
A similar incident happened in Canada over the weekend. The Canadian Coast Guard said that it had not seen the dog clinging to the ice but even if it did, there's little chance for the animal to be rescued. Pascale Fortin, from the Canadian Coast Guard, said that rescuing animals is not part of their mandate.
