A dog is one of the cherished members of many people’s families.
The thought of losing a furry friend is agonizing.
And a Florida dog survived the worst when a boating trip went terribly wrong.
Dog lost in the Gulf of Mexico during a boating outing
Ben and Kathleen Baker spent what they thought was going to be a relaxing Sunday with their two-year-old Australian Cattle Dog Eleanor in the Gulf of Mexico off Fort Meyers, Florida.
The dog, nicknamed Ellie, vanished while they were out at sea.
“It probably been a minute or so and I hadn’t seen her,” Kathleen said. “And I looked back and she was gone. Totally gone.”
The Bakers searched for Ellie without any luck.
Daylight was waning, and their fuel was beginning to run short.
Fear began to set in that they would never see their beloved dog again.
“It was getting dark and we were running out of gas and so we couldn’t keep looking, there were very few boats out there,” Kathleen recalled. “We thought we would never see her again.”
Most Australian Cattle Dogs are good swimmers, but Ellie was stranded somewhere in the vast Gulf of Mexico.
“I felt like I had a big hole in my heart and I just felt like we had somehow let her down,” Kathleen said.
Dog miraculously finds a boat
Ellie was doggy paddling in the Gulf of Mexico when a boat spotted her.
The Sanibel Harbor Princess was on a dinner cruise when Captain Terry Johns spotted a clamor among his guests on the back of the boat.
“They were all pretty excited about something going on, so I went back there and, sure enough, as I looked over the side, to see what they were pointing at, it looked like a little head that was swimming,” Johns told NBC2.
Ellie began to head toward the boat where she was rescued about a mile and a half from the shore.
“Sure enough, it was a little puppy, that was, making its way toward the back of the boat,” Johns added.
Johns and the crew headed to shore to find the dog’s owners.
Ellie’s microchip was no longer working.
The Bakers saw a story about their dog’s amazing rescue on the local news.
“That’s when we made some calls,” Ben Baker said.
“I’m 72 years old, and I’ve probably cried more in the past 18 hours [than ever before],” Ben added.
The Bakers drove 40 minutes to North Fort Myers to reunite with Ellie.
“She was having a good time because they had a little mini farm. So she was running around. When we saw her, we were just so thankful. So thankful, and it was just a miracle,” Kathleen told NBC2.
Johns called running into Ellie at the right time a miracle.
“Luckily, the dog had a little angel over her head that day too. The stars were in a line for Ellie that night,” Johns said.
Ellie is getting a doggie life vest the next time she goes out to sea with the Bakers.
“Even though she’s a good swimmer, obviously, I think that would have helped just to spot her,” Kathleen said.
She added that losing Ellie was her “worst nightmare with a happy ending.”
DeSantis Daily will keep you up-to-date on any new developments in this ongoing story.
