Posted on 02/12/2026 5:47:46 AM PST by Governor Dinwiddie
Hugh Pinneo had just gotten home from high school and was dozing on the couch when his mother’s screams jolted him awake.
“I think there’s a dog drowning in the pond!” she shouted.
Pinneo, 18, rushed to a window and saw a dog struggling to stay afloat on the partially frozen pond behind their home in Chesapeake, Virginia. The top of the dog’s head was covered in ice as he flailed in the pond, which is about 20 feet deep.
Pinneo, a senior at Grassfield High School, threw on a jacket and shoes, and ran outside.
“My instinct kicked in, and I was like, ‘I’ve got to go save that dog,’” Pinneo said.
He grabbed a kayak from his backyard and sprinted to the pond, which is about an eighth of a mile long and 200 feet wide, he said. His mother handed him a paddle as he headed into the frigid water.
“I had to rush out into the water,” Pinneo said. “I was going really fast.”
The temperature that afternoon, this past Friday, was around 39 degrees. Pinneo paddled across the half-frozen pond to reach the pup, who was still struggling. Pinneo’s first attempt to lift the animal failed.
“I got you, I got you,” Pinneo reassured the dog. “It’s okay.”
Pinneo kept trying and managed to lift the pup — which he believes weighs about 35 pounds — by his fur and onto the kayak.
“I’m going to lift you, okay?” Pinneo said in a video of the rescue, his voice sounding short of breath.
The rescue was captured from Pinneo’s perspective, as he was wearing Meta smart glasses, which he used to take a hands-free video.
“I just wanted to have a video because maybe in the future I’d look back …
(Excerpt) Read more at dnyuz.com ...
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Good work!
He’s lucky he didn’t drown.
WOW! Great kid.
I did that once, in similar conditions, only I used a canoe.
I never thought to call the media.
Yes , he is lucky. along with being brave and of noble character. A dog who weighs approximately 35lbs is a lot of dog, and a challenge to keep balanced while pulling the animal into a narrow kayak. Imagine trying to pull one of Senator (Goldbar) Menendez fully loaded suitcases into your gently rocking kayaks from an icy stream.
These days, that’s the first thing anyone of that generation thinks about.
I’ll bet that you didn’t wear glasses to film it, either. Times change.
I have many similar memories. Few are photographed. Since the Age of Digital Cameras, I have, pretty much, no photos.
Even under emergency conditions, today’s teenagers know how to use those hands free cameras to record the whole event.
I didn’t lift the dog in. I was able to guide him to shore.
My brother rescued me from an ice pond once after I fell in when I followed him out on the pond to ice skate..I was about 8...I didn’t go under the ice but if he hadn’t seen me fall in, I would have been a goner under the ice. It was where we cut the blocks of ice to store in the ice house for cooling cans of milk in the vat..I can’t remember if my brother took his skates off first but he put me on the sled and raced up (it was a hill from there to the pond), to the house. He couldn’t have done it WEARING SKATES certainly...I wonder if I thanked him...
“”A dog who weighs approximately 35lbs is a lot of dog””
A water soaked dog at that...brave and smart teen...I didn’t see if it was his dog??? Maybe not.
Not even his dog. The teenager just reacted to the “Fire Alarm” of hearing his Mom screaming in despair, as she looked out the kitchen window toward the lake, only to see a dog floundering in the icy waters. Adrenaline (not just poetry) in motion.
““I kind of just took a minute to sit there and thank God that nothing bad happened,” Pinneo said. “I was glad I was able to save the dog.””
I see where he gets his strength
Amen!
Thank You Lord for such a good kid, and a good mom and what a lucky pupper!
I love to read a story with a happy ending. So much crap going on today, but this is refreshing. Thanks for posting this, and God bless the boy.
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