Puppy falls overboard, swims miles to find family

A 10-month-old puppy swam miles to be reunited with her worried family. On Sunday, “Rylee,” a Belgian malinois, went overboard while her family was boating on Lake Michigan – according to ABC News, her disappearance was not immediately noticed because a mechanical issue on the boat was being attended to when she vanished.

According to UpNorthLive, Rylee was with her owner’s parents, Ed and Kristin Casas, who were approximately six miles from shore at the time that she went into the water – though they issued a distress call and searched the area, Rylee was nowhere to be found.

Soon, fishermen in the area joined the search and the Lost Dog Search Team was notified about Rylee’s disappearance. Thanks to the efforts of social media users and area residents, thousands of eyes were scouring the area for the missing dog.

Just one day later, Rylee was found – it is estimated that the determined puppy swam six miles and walked an additional 12 miles to find her family. The Lost Dog Search Team shared words of gratitude on Tuesday morning for everyone who played a part in getting Rylee back to her family:

On behalf of the whole LDST team, we have several people to thank for their assistance in getting Rylee home safe. We were able to help reunite this amazing dog with her very loving family with the help of several people. A heartfelt thank you goes out to all the fishermen who responded to the distress call to search the waters, thank you to all of you who called in crucial sightings, to the Leland Harbormaster for allowing this family to borrow your truck to go rescue their furbaby. Also, thank you to the Leelenau Sheriffs Dept. for dealing with all of my phone calls and to all the Park Rangers and staff at the Platt River Campground for your help with sightings. It takes a village sometimes and the people in Benzie county came through. We thank you all from the bottom of our hearts. Last but not least, I have one more big thank you, and that goes to the over 20,000 people who viewed this post and the hundreds of people who shared it. Social media played a huge role in getting this story out, so to all of you I give you a big pat on back.

(Casas family photo)