Rescue

Rescue

Part One: A Dull November Day

There must be something special about those dull, November days that makes people do things that they normally might not do. This was just one of those totally gray days in British Columbia.

It was misty, early evening, as I headed homeward with my dog in the car. I had spent the afternoon with Butch, who was a cross between a black labrador and a husky. He was a wonderful dog and a great companion as far as dogs go. We had been down by the Fraser River, where my husband was working on a dredge.

It had been a rather pleasant afternoon and Butch had thoroughly enjoyed himself, first going out on the dredge on the tug and then chasing rabbits through the sand piles that were growing larger in leaps and bounds, on the beach. Butch had even made his first attempt to walk the pipeline back to the shore, following in the footsteps of my husband. But after a few steps, the dog had slipped off the pipeline and decided to swim back to shore.

Butch was totally covered with silt and sand from the river bottom. Not only that, because the mouth of the Fraser River was partly salt water, he had a sea salt stench and badly needed to have a bath, before we returned to the motel where were staying.

I made a decision to just take a drive and find a body of fresh water, where he could go for a quick swim. I headed out the freeway towards White Rock, and finally found a service road that had a wide ditch running along one side of it. I figured that was probably as good a place as any to let my dog go for a his swim.

However, Butch did not think that it was such a good idea. As a matter of fact, he had no intention whatsoever of going into the water in the ditch. He had been in and out of the water all afternoon. But I could not take him back to the motel all covered with silt, salt and sand. He had to be cleaned up first, ie. get washed somewhere, somehow.

It was starting to get relatively dark. I was not about to take 'no' for an answer from a dog.

Finally, just a little bit infuriated with him and his total lack of co-operation, I grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and much to his dismay, plopped him right into the water. Butch looked at me with the oddest expression. Obviously, he was not very happy with me or with what I had just done. He started to swim away from me, instead of coming back towards me. What I had not bargained for was the fact that he would swim to the opposite side of the ditch.

As he climbed up on the opposite bank, he stood there, looking at me with his big dark eyes. I waited, expecting him to swim back. I waited and I waited. Nothing happened. It was getting darker and darker. I called him. He would not move. I tossed a stick in the water again and again, hoping that he would go after them as he would have done under normal circumstances.

He stood there. I hollered at him. He simply just stayed right there.

I got in the car and started to drive away, thinking that he would follow. He just stood there and yelped. He was starting to shiver. He was obviously cold and he was scared. I had no idea why he was so frightened or what I should do. I tried everything that I knew how to do, to persuade him to swim back to where I had so foolishly put him into the water. He would not move. He was absolutely terrified of something. I just couldn't believe that he was scared of the water or that what I had done was something that would frighten him.