After taking a walk at Bayfront Park in Menlo Park, June Rodgers’ dog Raider pulled a runner.
As they were leaving around 11:30 a.m. on Friday, June 2, the elderly dog bolted from the car, apparently deciding to take a swim in the slough, and quickly disappeared from sight, said Menlo Park police Sgt. Sharon Kaufman.
Since Raider, 12, is a bit hard of hearing and is losing his eyesight as well, Peninsula Humane Society officer Julie Nasevicius was called in to help find and rescue the dog from the thick, sticky low-tide mud, said PHS vice president Scott Delucchi.
“She belly-crawled for about half a mile, and used a net to pull herself along, to give herself some more traction in the mud,” he said.
It took a grueling two hours to reach Raider, who thankfully stayed put and didn’t panic or become aggressive, he said. A rescue team from the Menlo Park Fire Protection District arrived by airboat to ferry Ms. Nasevicius and Raider, who were both exhausted from the ordeal, back to dry land.
Sgt. Kaufman said that Raider was unharmed, and happily reunited with Ms. Rodgers.
“Julie’s fine, but she was covered in mud from head to toe,” Mr. Delucchi said.
“It was a pretty dramatic rescue,” but “our officers do things that are more dangerous than that all the time,” he said.
