MILO, Maine — A 9-year-old black lab is safe at home recovering from her unexpected icy plunge Wednesday afternoon into the Sebec River.
Maggie, a 9-year-old black lab, had been treading water for at least an hour when she was rescued in an operation that involved an observant local couple, Milo police and firefighters, the fire department’s rescue boat and the town’s animal control officer, among others.
“It was a real team effort,” Milo police Chief Damien Pickel said Thursday afternoon.
Pickel said the series of events that led to the rescue began early Wednesday afternoon, when Linda and Marty O’Connor were out snowshoeing near the river and heard what sounded to them like an animal, possibly a bear cub or large dog, in distress.
The couple reported the problem to town office staff, who in turn called the police, Pickel said. Pickel, who was helping an elderly man who slipped on the ice get back upright when the report came in, got in touch with the O’Connors for more details and set out to the area to investigate as soon as he was free.
After a roughly half-mile walk along the railroad tracks between the Katahdin Country Club and the river, Pickel began hearing the sound of a dog yelping, he said. He then spotted tracks leading to the water and then, Maggie herself.
“I couldn’t get to her. The water was really cold and she was 25 or 30 feet offshore,” Pickel said. He radioed the fire department for help and firefighters Ricky Bradeen, Nathan Richards, Dwayne Applebee and Tom Nickerson — who had put on a wetsuit — showed up with a rescue boat.
Pickel captured the river rescue — which lasted about a minute — on video and posted the footage on the Milo Police Department’s Facebook page, where as of 6 p.m. Thursday it had racked up 576 “likes,” 110 shares and 75 comments.
After she was plucked from the icy water, Maggie was warmed up under the guidance of Animal Control Officer Joe Guyotte and taken to the Eastern Maine Emergency Vet Clinic in Brewer.
Maggie’s owners, Bob and Alyson Ade, were working while the rescue operation was going on and weren’t aware anything had been amiss until they received a call from the police chief.
Alyson Ade said when she checked, she found Maggie’s brother, Finley, at home but no sign of Maggie. The collar Maggie wears as part of a wireless pet fence the family installed around their property was found near a side door.
Ade speculated Thursday that the collar might have been removed by one of the couple’s five children, who range in age from 2 to 11 and were being babysat by her mother that day. She said Maggie likely left the yard to follow a deer or some other animal though the nearby golf course.
Ade said she was amazed that Maggie survived her near drowning because the 90-pound pooch has an underactive thyroid problem.
“We always joke that she’d so lazy because of this thyroid business, she doesn’t have a lot of energy — he brother has all the energy — and she’s overweight. I have no idea how she survived. No idea,” Ade said.
Though Maggie was barely able to move in the hours after her rescue, by Thursday morning she had perked up, was wagging her tail and walking again.
This week’s episode was not Maggie’s first rescue, Ade noted. Maggie and Finley were rescued when they were just 6 weeks old. Their former owner was no longer able to care for them, unable to find them new homes and considering drowning them in the pond out behind his home. Ade said she decided to take them in on the spot and they’ve been part of the family ever since.