The dog, Rylee, a 10-month-old Blegian Malinois, and its owners Ed and Kristin Casas, were about six miles out from Frankfort on the lake Sunday morning, vacationing in MI. Casas tells ABC News Rylee went overboard while he was in the engine room trying to figure out a mechanical problem with the boat and his wife was steering.
Advertisement
But Rylee was nowhere to be seen either on the boat or in the water nearby.
That is, until Lynn Fiedor, operator of the Lost Dog Search Team Facebook page, caught wind of the missing canine.
They estimate that the pooch swam close to six miles to shore and traveled more than a dozen more miles by foot, the story said.
“In retrospect I remember her coming out here to see where I was going”, Kristin Casas told WPBN.
A $5,000 reward was offered for any information regarding Rylee.
Though no one had reported seeing Rylee Sunday evening, Fiedor said hope came in the form of a call the following morning.
Fiedor immediately alerted Edward and Kristin about the sighting, and the couple was able to drive to the campground area thanks to a local harbormaster who let them borrow his truck. “We ended up having over 20,000 people look at our post online and when I saw that I was like … we’re going to find the dog”, Fiedor told Up North Live.
A day later, campers said they spotted a dog wandering through the woods.
When Mr Casas started squeaking one of Rylee’s playthings, he finally emerged out of the trees to be reunited with his family.
Advertisement
The couple added that their 18-year-old son away at college, Colin Casas, technically owns Rylee and that he was also relieved after hearing the good news.
