What started out as a calm Sunday on the water turned into a rescue mission for one group of friends.
- Group finds dog wearing a life preserver out on open water
- Dog was apparently lost three hours earlier
Bruce and Robin Knecht, along with their friends Shawn and Michael Sahr, were boating off the coast of Hernando Beach to celebrate Bruce and Shawn’s birthdays. They had planned to island hop, but spotted something strange in the water, about five miles away from the coast.
“I see a buoy, what I thought was a buoy,” Bruce said. “As we’re passing it, I said ‘oh my gosh’ it had two arms and eyes and I didn’t know if it was a child.”
The lifelong friends found a dog out at sea. He had on a life jacket, but looked like he’d been in the water for quite some time.
“I’m like, it’s a dog!” said Robin Knect. “We both screamed that at the same time. He’s looking right at us and he’s terrified, the poor little guy.”
“He had a little handle on the back of his life jacket,” Michael said. “So I just reached down and pulled him up.”
They pulled him up into their boat and called the Coast Guard. They found out his owner had reported him missing three hours earlier.
“We know that somebody really cares about this dog, because they thought enough to put a life preserver on him,” Shawn said. “We felt sure it saved his life.”
The friends were able to reunite the dog, whose name is Jägermeister, with his owner, and they said it was an emotional reunion.
“The owner was crying and the dog was licking him and so excited,” Shawn said.
“That was the highlight of my day,” Bruce said. “We were just cruising around, we were going to sit on a island and that gave us some purpose.”
Jägermeister is expected to be all right.