Mystery dog rescued from uninhabited island
Published: November 20, 2005
The mystery pooch seen wandering for months on uninhabited Burlington Island was rescued last week.
The dog, a black chow about 5 years old, should be OK, although when it was leashed and hustled to safety it was dehydrated, infested with ticks, suffering from Lyme disease and desperately hungry. [Everything You Need to Know About Lyme Disease and Other Tick-Borne Disorders]
“She was in pretty bad shape,” said the dog’s rescuer, John Haldis of Northeast Philadelphia.
The happy ending was sparked last week after a column I wrote about the dog generated a bunch of media interest.
This included the glassy-eyed gaze of cameras from a couple of Philadelphia TV news choppers, which were dispatched up this way for the story.
Haldis, who works at the Snug Harbor Marina in Croydon, saw one of the TV reports and decided he’d try to get the pooch.
“A couple of friends were talking about it,” said Haldis, 38, who runs a boat canvas and upholstery shop at the marina.
Early Friday morning, Haldis, with marina workers Jack Litz and Phil Thompson, set out for the 400-acre island, which separates Bristol from Burlington.
“We pulled up around 6:30 [a.m.] to the northwest side of the island. We pulled the boat right up onto the beach. Jack went to the back of the island to see if the dog was back there. Me and Phil walked north and we saw the dog, about a half-mile away. It looked like it was trying to feed off the surf, at the water’s edge. You could see she was cold and really emaciated. She was in pretty bad shape,” he said.
He called to the dog and it ran, blindly running into brush, which backed to water and was trapped.
Haldis said he took out some rope and tried to leash the dog.
“She took a snap at me, but the second I was able to get the rope around her neck, I began petting her and she calmed down,” he said.
He took out some dog food, which he had purchased prior to the rescue. He estimates the dog ate between five and six pounds of Kibbles ‘n Bits.
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