Amazing.....simply AMAZING!

edited April 2009 in General
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090406/ts_afp/australiaanimaldogoffbeat_20090406082210

Dog overboard found four months later

SYDNEY (AFP) – A pet dog that fell overboard in rough seas off Australia has been reunited with its owners after surviving alone on an island for four months, reports said.

Sophie Tucker, apparently named after a late US entertainer, fell overboard as Jan Griffith and her family sailed through choppy waters off the northeast Queensland coast in November.

The dog was believed to have drowned and Griffith said the family was devastated.

But out of sight of the family, Sophie Tucker was swimming doggedly and finally made it to St Bees Island, five nautical miles away, and began the sort of life popularised by the TV reality show "Survivor."

She was returned to her family last week when Griffith contacted rangers who had captured a dog that had been living off feral goats on the largely uninhabited island, in the faint hope it might be their long-lost pet.

When the Griffiths met the rangers' boat bringing the dog to the mainland they found that it was indeed Sophie Tucker on board.

"We called the dog and she started whimpering and banging the cage and they let her out and she just about flattened us," Griffith told the national AAP news agency.

"She wriggled around like a mad thing."

Griffith said that when the dog was first spotted on the island she had been in poor condition.

"And then all of a sudden she started to look good and it was when the rangers had found baby goat carcasses so she'd started eating baby goats," she said.

Sophie Tucker, a member of the Australian cattle dog breed, had been quick to readjust to the comforts of home, complete with airconditioning, Griffiths said.

"She surprised us all. She was a house dog and look what she's done, she's swum over five nautical miles, she's managed to live off the land all on her own," Griffiths said.

"We wish she could talk, we truly do."

Comments

  • edited November -1
    That's amazing...I wonder if she had a Wilson to talk to.
  • edited November -1
    LOL Beth!
  • edited November -1
    that dog probably had a blast once she realized what she was built to accomplish on her own! awesome story!
  • edited November -1
    That is really amazing. Just goes to show you have powerful instincts are.

    BTW, not to derail this thread, but that was one of the worst movies ever made.
  • edited November -1
    That's a very cool story, very impressive.
    Luckily for Sophie Tucker, she's of a breed that can actually fend for themselves.
    Imagine if she was a Chihuahua or something like that, I'm guessing her life would have been much more complicated and probably much shorter.

    This brings me back to that discussion we had about this exact thing, how certain breeds wouldn't make out there.
  • edited November -1
    I think if that ever happened to Sachi she would have lived solely on lizards. Its kind of interesting to think whether or not she would take down something like a goat, but as long as there are geckos or chameleons she would be ok.
  • edited November -1
    Hmmmmm. interesting. Do you think most Shiba's would "make it" out in the wild? Is that other discussion still active?

    And yeah, I kinda bet that sophie was enjoying being able to be "wild". I mean I bet she missed the comforts of having a home.....but ...well......she's a cattle dog right?? She was doing what her instincts told her she was meant to do. ???
  • edited November -1
    I definitely think most shibas would be able to make it out in the wild.
  • edited November -1
    She's like a canine Crocodile Dundee! Think I would have to rename that pup Dundee!! Totally amazing story...especially swimming the shark infested waters!!
  • edited April 2009
    Wow....great story.....a true survivor!

    I liked the movie......lol
  • edited November -1
    Cool! I think Rakka and Tojo would make it in the wild. Rakka, especially. Skella probably has the physical capacity to hunt but I can't even imagine her actually killing something.
  • edited November -1
    Really a great story!!

    Think my little streetgirl wont have any problems, she would live on grass, fruits etc :)kinda vegetarian...or perhaps on flies or lizards... up until know she hasnt hunt down an animal but i think merely cause she hadnt had the chance to cause these damn birds wont stay sitting on the ground ^^

    Baba Lisa
  • edited November -1
    I keep going over it in my head......I'm not sure how honey would do! lol
  • edited November -1
    What an incredible story. Dog's never cease to amaze me...in many ways.
  • edited November -1
    cool read!
  • edited April 2009
    amazing story
  • edited November -1
    I am not sure about Lexi killing food in the wild. I just want her to kill the damn cat. Once that evil thing has been sent back into the abyss, the dog will be dinning on a black angus porterhouse. And there will be one for daddy too. :)
  • edited November -1
    We think Josephine may have made it on her own for a couple weeks in the wilderness while at the ripe old age of about 8-10 weeks before we found her (literally the "babe in the wilderness"). We could guage the amount of time she was lost from the size of the engorged ticks -- she must have harbored 30-40 of them on her little body (maybe all of 10 pounds at the time). Her full story is in another thread and back in her past, but here are our theories of how she survived, even though a young puppy. The day after we found her we noticed she licked the wet grass. In the area where we found her there likely was dew, condensation on grasses and other surfaces every morning. Even as a young pup she seemed to know hydration was key to her survival. She was insane about eating dead worms (in Mn in the summer they commonly come to the surface when there is a rain, and squirm around on the streets and sidewalks, then get trapped there, eventually die, and then dry up)... Yum, yum -- worm "jerky"... just the delicacy a lost doggie needs to keep going! Then there were the bugs and moths and other flying and crawly things ... this little puppy seemed to be expert at hunting these things, killing and eating them. All this after consuming her puppy food! The survival instinct was very strong in her all through that first summer after she was found. Interesting to deliberate how even such a young dog would figure out how to stay alive on her own! Well, that's all behind her now. And of course her hunting instinct (the innate part that allowed her to survive, I think) has now focused itself on bunnies, partridge and other more robust fare --- this too in another thread.

    I find it interesting in the story above that at first the dog maybe did not "get it", (i.e. when the dog was first spotted on the island she had been in poor condition. "And then all of a sudden she started to look good and it was when the rangers had found baby goat carcasses so she'd started eating baby goats")... It seems this doggie gradually learned as starvation set in she had to begin to use those innate skills she had, but hadn't exercised before... A powerful and inspirational story --- I think we humans have these innate skills and instincts to survive, too. Lessons learned from this story can be applied to our lives when things look the most bleak. Thanks for sharing!
  • edited November -1
    Ok, let me ask you all this.....do you think dogs would "prefer" to be "wild"?
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