Posted on 02/04/2015 5:40:26 PM PST by artichokegrower
A yellow lab is lucky to be alive after a fall into the icy waters of Lake Michigan.
Coast Guard crews at Coast Guard Station Frankfort, Michigan were going about their morning Tuesday when they noticed the lab swimming amongst the ice in Betsy Lake right outside their window.
(Excerpt) Read more at gcaptain.com ...
Beats the Budweiser puppy commercial
ping
ping
Kudos to the Coast Guard crew, particularly those who went into the lake to pull the pup to safety.
Well done!
A young Lab saved that would have surely perished.
Good on them.
Thanks, I did the courtesy of going to the site and was blocked by a giant popup wanting me to sign up for the bloggers newsletter, so I skipped it.
Thanks for the direct youtube link.
Thank you for the post and video. Lovely stuff, well done the Coast Guard. I have a part German Sheppard/Golden Lab, a shelter dog. Got quite emotional- silly me!
I know that wolves live in the arctic and can handle icy water all day long; my vet explained it is due to their double coat which is an excellent insulator and mostly waterproof. The “old breeds” (Akita, Chow Chow, Malamute, Husky) that are genetically very similar to wolves all have the same double coat, and in my experience can survive easily under similar conditions. My Chow wouldn’t even sleep on a blanket when it was -25F when we were primitive camping; she preferred to sleep on the cold ground. My Chows have also had no issue with swimming in icy water at those kind of sub-zero temperatures, although one did shiver a bit after swimming all day when she was a pup, but she was very small. I see so many cases pf “experts” assuming things like “the dog would surely have died from the icy water”, without a whit a whit of evidence to back it up, that I am very skeptical. I know what I have seen, and wolves and related breeds are in no danger in icy water like this. I’ve seen many other breeds swimming in the icy water of the Great Lakes and the Susquehanna in winter, but I’ve never seen any dog corpses washing up on the shores, or seen any dogs going into shock from the cold water, even in cases where they broke through the ice and were stuck for a while. Humans do have a strange physiological reaction to cold water on the face that can lead to cardiac failure or severe shock; I used to do polar bear swims and was taught to keep my face out of the water to avoid this, but dogs are different.
Poor, dumb little guy.
Thanks for the info and insight.
Meanwhile, our glorious President is negotiating respectfully with people who throw other human beings off the roofs of tall buildings because they’re homosexual, while here in American we are putting ourselves in harms’ way to rescue the most vulnerable and helpless of beings. Maybe someday someone will explain to me how a country that does the kind of stuff on this video can choose “leaders” like the ones we have.
Saw the video on the news. Ditto what you said.
A few years ago, somebody posted a similar story and some poor FReeper who goes by the moniker Cyclotic merely suggested that outside of being a good training exercise, in his opinion a well placed rifle shot would be far more humane to the dog than letting it freeze to death awaiting rescue. (one of the two dogs did freeze)
Cyclotic is still nursing the burns from the flame treatment he received.
Active Duty ping.
The blanket at the end was perfect.
Thanks for the ping——that was one lucky dog.
Much credit to the guys that went in and got him-———it looked sooooo cold.
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