This is a Christmas miracle if there ever was one.
On Sunday morning, a Labrador named Quila and her daughter, Sunni, went out for a walk with their owner on the north Norfolk coast in the UK. The pair of dogs got excited when they spotted a seal pup in the water, and they jumped in, according to EDP24.
More seal pups arrived, and the dogs were in heaven, paddling after them. Their owner, Mike Jenner, didn’t see it that way. Worried about the condition of the ocean, he called and called for them to return.
“I managed to get Sunni back, I was waist high in water by then,” he told EDP24. “I tied her up and then tried to get Quila, who’s now getting further and further out and totally ignoring me.”
He enlisted the help of two kayakers, but they soon lost sight of Quila. His beloved eight-year-old dog had vanished amidst the waves.
Saddened, the man called the Coast Guard, then headed home with a heavy heart to tell his wife the bad news.
But it was not to be. After Jenner had gone home, Coast Guard lifeboats scrambled and began searching. They headed to one of the offshore reefs, about a half mile off the coast. They heard barking. They found Quila, wet, shivering, terrified, huddled on the rocks. They helped her off the reef, hauled her aboard, and sped back to shore in a dramatic rescue.
Jake Munday, a member of the rescue team, said: “This was one lucky dog. We’re just grateful to be in the right place at the right time.”
Fortunately, crew members took a video of the rescue, which you can watch here:
Though the dog had lost her name tag in the rescue, it didn’t take long to locate Mr. Jenner. Soon, Quila was back with her family.
“From what was going to be a terrible, miserable Christmas, it’s as if all of that’s been swept away and everything is wonderful,” he told EDP24.
His wife, Caroline, was also ecstatic. “We’re over the moon. Christmas was going to be cancelled. We really can’t thank Happisburgh and Sea Palling rescue enough, they were absolutely fantastic.”
Via EDP24
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