Canadian Coast Guard rescues often focus on people saved from the water, but a rescue Monday was of a furrier kind.
Halifax Inshore Rescue received a call from the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre and they deemed it “not an official SAR (search and rescue) call” as it didn’t involve a human but asked if they could head over to Conrad’s Beach, N.S.
“There was a dog that had gone for a swim and its owner said that the dog kind of left the beach and swam straight out and the dog had been gone for 45 minutes and they couldn’t find it and couldn’t see it,” said Breagh Harrie, the coxswain of the Halifax Inshore Rescue Boat Service.
WATCH: Coast Guard rescues dolphin after it becomes stranded on boat
Harrie and her deck hands, Bronwyn Forsythe and Harlow Lachance, drove over to Conrad’s Beach in their Zodiac Hurricane rescue craft and started a search pattern.
Five minutes into searching, one of Harrie’s deck hands spotted something in the water and the team headed in the direction of the object.
“Sure enough, she was fooling around in the water,” Harrie said.
“We kind of approached her slowly and she was a little weary but we got alongside of her and we lifted her into the boat and she was as happy as can be. She was very tired and a little dehydrated but she was good to go.”
The crew took the dog to Lawrencetown, N.S. but could not beach the boat due to the surf so they asked one of the lifeguards if they could come out to get there. A lifeguard did swim out and carried the dog back to the shore where she was reunited with her owner.
Weather was relatively calm when they rescued the dog about half a mile offshore, Harrie said, but she said the dog “may have been a little disoriented” and couldn’t find her way back to shore.
READ MORE: Canadian, US Coast Guards training together to improve search-and-rescue efforts
While many rescues involve humans, she said they do rescue more than just people. Harrie and members of her crew are part of a program involving post-secondary students that work with the coast guard during the summer.
“A lot of people believe that we’re enforcement but we’re actually here to help,” she said. “In this case, it’s not just about humans, we’re there for everybody.”
Comments