We may not allow ourselves to believe in miracles, but they still happen every day.
Like when a 15-inch, 15 lb. Jack Russell terrier was found alive almost three hours after falling overboard into the 618,000-mile Gulf of Mexico.
“You just saw his little nose sticking out of the water. If we weren’t as close as we were, 5 to 10 feet, we wouldn’t have seen him,” his rescuers told FOX 13 Tampa Bay.
The dog’s owner had reported him missing and searched for him in the expansive ocean to know available.
Thankfully, despite the massive ocean space, the dog was found. Bruce Knecht, his wife Robin Knecht, and friends Michael and Shawn Sahr always take an annual birthday boat trip in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Florida.
They didn’t imagine their 2016 trip would turn into a rescue mission, but it did when it spotted something in the water.
“At first I thought it was a floating buoy in the water,” Robert Knecht said on “Good Morning America. “And then I said, ‘Oh my goodness.’ I saw two brown eyes and almost thought it was a child and [I] turned the boat around instantly and headed to the dog.”
The dog, whose name is Jagermeister, was wearing a life vest and started to doggy paddle as fast as he could toward the boat as soon as he saw it.
Knecht pulled the pup from the water as soon as he was close enough to do so.
Thankfully, Jagermeister was found to be healthy and not overly distressed when he was rescued.
“He was shaking like a leaf,” Robin Knecht told the Daily News. “We got towels wrapped around him and got him calmed down — it took about 30 minutes.”
Shawn Shar immediately called the U.S. Coast Guard who advised them that they were already searching for the overboard dog.
It is believed that Jagermeister had jumped overboard when his owner stopped their boat and went down in the bilge for a short while.
When he came back up, they realized that the dog was missing. That was at 9 a.m. The owners spent hours zig-zagging across the ocean to find their dog and had become heartbroken and lost hope of being able to find him alive.
Jagermeister was found by his rescuers at around 12 p.m.
The U.S. Coast Guard asked for a description of the dog and confirmed it was the one they were looking for and asked the rescuers to stay put until they were able to contact the owner.
The Coast Guard was able to make immediate contact with the owners so they got to hang out with Jagermeister for a little while.
“He was very friendly, very sweet — you could tell he had been on the water,” Bruce Knecht said. “After he got calmed down he hopped up on the top deck of our boat and sunbathed.”
But when they fired up their boat engine to go meet Jagemeister’s owners, the dog ran straight to the back of the boat to get in on all the action.
“I guess he likes watching the motor and the waves going. He’s definitely a sea dog,” Robin Knecht said.
Jagermeister was finally reunited with his owners at around 2 p.m. It was definitely a tearful reunion.
“When the owner came in, he was screaming the dog’s name,” said Bruce Knecht.
“It was wonderful,” Robin Knecht said. “The dog started licking his [owner’s] face. We all got tears in our eyes.”
The couples said it was a blessing that they were able to reunite Jagermeister with his owner who was overjoyed to have their little buddy back.
Learn more about this miraculous sea dog in the video below.
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