Firefighters Rescue Blind Chocolate Labrador From River

An 11-year-old chocolate lab who is blind and nearly deaf became stuck in the middle of the Tuscarawas River this week. 

Credit: timesreporter.com

Jennifer Hursey, Brodi’s owner let him out on the porch at her home at 5:30 a.m. Tuesday, and she told timesreporter.com, “Lately, he has not been feeling good, so he hasn’t been leaving the porch much,” she said. “We didn’t expect this to happen.”

Just 5 minutes later at 5:35 a.m., Brodi was gone. Hursey and her sons Chantz, 10, and Easton, 8, searched high and low for Brodi, but they couldn’t find him anywhere. “He is a wonderful dog,” she said. “I have two little boys, and they’ve grown up with Brodi. He loves to swim and goes to the lake. When he goes to the lake, he’ll swim with the boys on his back. He also lets them dress him up.”

Around 3 p.m., a woman driving down U.S. Route 36 near Riverside, saw something moving on an island in the river, according to Terry Warner. The woman stopped her truck and when she saw a dog, she yelled but the dog wouldn’t respond. She immediately called the sheriff’s office and had them dispatch the Warwick Township Fire Department. 

Credit: timesreporter.com

Warner speculated that Brodi fell into the river and was carried downstream by the current to the island. When firefighters arrived, they put a boat in the river in the Tuscarawas boat landing, came down the river and loaded Brodi into their boat. Warner then picked up the Brodi and brought him to the dog pound. “Brodi stayed overnight on a nice thick quilt,” Warner said. 

In the meantime, Hursey had put up a post on Facebook about her dog when she heard from someone that Brodi had been found. “We are just in tears,” she said. “I picked him up this morning. He was happy to see me. He hasn’t seen the boys yet. He will see them tonight. He will be excited to see them.”

Hursey expressed her gratitude to Brodi’s rescuers, saying, “We’re forever thankful to them. Brodi just means the world to us.” 

SOURCE: Lifedaily.com

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