Texas Dog Swims for Several Miles to Safety After Falling Off Boat and Reunites with Owner
Fox 26 Houston
A dog swam several miles to shore after she fell out the back of a shrimp boat in San Leon, Texas.
The canine — named Monster — regularly joins her owner Captain Keith "Kiwi" Soffes on his shrimp boat but fell overboard on a recent outing.
"We just headed back to the dock. Monster was doing her regular old thing that she's always done," Soffes told KRIV. "Goes back there are barks at the birds, does the Monster thing."
"We got to where we're going to load the net up on the back of the boat to come home, and she always goes back there, grabs the net, and starts pulling on it. And when she wasn't there," the owner added.
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As soon as Soffes realized his dog was missing and must have fallen off the boat into open water, he set out to find her.
"I said, 'Where she at?' It was the middle of the bay, pretty much. I mean, you know, open water, four or five miles from any type of land," he explained. "My heart just fell. I couldn't even speak, but I turned around, I got my GPS coordinates, and I said, 'We're going to find her.' I looked up and down the coast."
Unfortunately, Soffes didn't locate Monster and decided to share the story of his missing dog on social media.
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"I lost the one thing in this world that I truly loved. My best friend. Monster dog," he wrote on Facebook. "We don't really know what happened. We think she fell off the boat on a slick calm day.. she had been on the boat her whole life."
Soffes continued, "I searched and searched.. hopefully somebody picked her up. We were around marker number 71. If anyone here's any talk about her please contact me. Totally heartbroken."
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Soffes told KRIV that he received a promising but unlikely lead five days after Monster went missing.
"Five days went by. I started posting more and more and more and more, and a lady said, 'I saw a dog like that at the park.' I said, 'She couldn't have made it that swim. There's no way that dog swam that far."
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After searching the neighborhood, Soffes found his beloved pet at the nearby trailer park the lead mentioned.
"I was crying so hard I couldn't even talk. She was giving me so many kisses," he shared.
"I think her swimming every day saved her life. Just her being on the boat, being used to the water," he added.
