BUCKSPORT, Maine — A dog may be man’s best friend, but Duke, a 4-year-old chocolate lab, has a pretty good friend of his own.
His owner, 22-year-old Whitney Hand of Bucksport, braved the icy waters of the water hazard on the first hole at the family-owned Bucksport Golf Club on Tuesday morning to rescue Duke who had broken through the ice on the pond.
Duke is one of four dogs – two others are also labs – who are familiar to golfers at the club. He is the oldest and Hand said she got him as a puppy hoping he would keep the geese off the course.
“He’s been my constant companion,” Hand said. “He goes everywhere with me. He even plays golf with me.”
Duke observes golf etiquette and knows not to get in the way or chase after the balls, she said.
“He’s my best friend,” she said.
Hand, who herself is well-known in golfing circles having won several junior titles as a teenager, works with her father at his accounting business located above the club house. On Tuesday, the dogs were there, as always. Hand takes them out for regular walks and, because the geese were there, Duke wandered off.
“I was up by the putting green and I heard him screeching,” she said.
Hand ran and saw that Duke had broken through the ice on the still partially frozen pond near the first hole of the course.
“When I got there, most of him was under water,” she said. “I could just see the tip of his nose sticking up out of the water. And he was making this high-pitched screeching sound.’’
Hand didn’t hesitate. She walked into the freezing water to save her friend.
“I walked in as far as I could and then I started swimming and I was breaking the ice with my hands,” she said. “I’d lost my breath when I hit the cold water, but I guess the adrenalin pushed me there.”
Duke was staying afloat, but much of his body was under the ice.
“I gave him a nudge and he started swimming back along the path I had made,” she said. “I was pretty cold and my clothes were pretty heavy, but I followed him.”
It was slow going, but they both made it back to land.
Hand’s father, Wayne Hand, was in the office above the club house, unaware of the drama unfolding outside his window.
“I was totally oblivious,” he said. “I couldn’t believe it. They came in all soaking wet and I said ‘what happened?’ I thought maybe they’d been playing out in the rain. But then I had a flashback.”
This is not the first time Duke has gone through the ice while chasing geese.
“He’d done it before,” the elder Hand said. “That was several years ago. He went through the ice on the [Narramissic] river. That time we had to coax him to swim down river to the shore and not try to get back up on the ice.”
After a hot shower for Whitney Hand in the ladies’ locker room and a towel rub down for Duke, both were back to normal. By Tuesday evening, she was working at the office and Duke was in his normal spot, napping beneath her desk.
Hand lost her shoes during her rescue along with everything from her pockets, including her wallet and her money. But she said, it was worth it.
“The whole time I was swimming, I knew that I was going to make it,” she said. “There was no question. I knew how cold I was, but he’s always been so protective of me and of my family and of the golf course. I knew I had to be there for him. I wasn’t going to let him down.”