Puppy Swims 6 Miles, Walks 12 More to Find Family

A 10-month-old puppy swam more than 6 miles in the choppy waters of Lake Michigan, then walked another 12 miles to be reunited with her family in a campground after falling overboard during a family boating outing Sunday.

Edward Casas, 56, told ABC News that his son’s puppy, Rylee, must have fallen overboard when he when he was in the boat’s engine room trying to figure out what had caused the boat to stall.

The family, visiting northern Michigan from Illinois, had been gone from the harbor at Frankfort for about 10 minutes Sunday and were headed toward the Manitou Islands when they encountered engine trouble, according to a post on UpNorthLive.com.

Kristin Casas was in the cabin with the Belgian Malinois puppy when her husband said he needed her to steer the boat while he talked on the phone with a mechanic to resolve the problem.

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Kristin Casas told WITI-TV she noticed the Belgian Malinois puppy had joined her near the wheel to see where the boat was headed, but “my poor assumption was that she would go back to the cabin with her dad.”

“Our hearts just sank,” Edward Casas told ABC. “We were gone for maybe 10 minutes, and then we couldn’t find her anywhere on the boat and she was nowhere to be seen in the water.”

The Casas family put out a “dog overboard” call on the radio. Several fishermen and the U.S. Coast Guard in Frankfort joined the search. No one found her.

Lynn Fiedor, whose husband was among the fishermen looking for Rylee, put a post on her Lost Dog Search Team and For the Louie Michigan Lost Pet Lookers Facebook pages. The Facebook groups normally concentrate on pets lost in southeast Michigan but made an exception to find Rylee.

The posts generated more than 20,000 hits. As the likes and shares soared, so did Fiedor’s heart.

“When I saw that, I thought, ‘We are going to find the dog,'” a tearful Fiedor said.

A boater found Rylee swimming near Empire Beach, scooped her up and dropped her off, assuming that’s where she had been.

The Casases and Rylee were eventually reunited through the power of social media. Someone commented on the Facebook pages that a dog that looked like Rylee had been seen near the Platte River Campground. The couple headed to the campground and were reunited with their dog about 15 minutes later.

The family is quick to credit Fiedor’s group for Rylee’s safe return.

“We have a happy ending,” Fiedor said. “And it's the reason we do what we do.”

Photo by ckay via Flickr