Runaway dog reunited with Ont. owners after crossing U.S. border

Missing Guelph dog rescued by US coastguard From CTV Kitchener’s Marta Czurylowicz: A lost dog ended up being rescued by the coastguard before being reunited with his owners.

A Guelph, Ont. couple was reunited with their dog after it ran away on Christmas Eve and was subsequently rescued by the U.S. Coast Guard.

The dog had been missing for eleven days, but was eventually found on Lime Island near the U.S-Canada border - - 20 kilometres south of where it had gone missing.

“He was so excited, you know? He was a bit … traumatized,” Logan’s owner Kailaan Walker told CTV Kitchener.

On Christmas Eve, Walker and Lydia Selin said their dog disappeared during a trip to their family farm in St. Joseph, Ont., just south of Sault Ste. Marie, Ont.

The couple spent days searching for their three-year-old Husky mix after it “took off on a deer trail.”

“We ended up having to come home back to Guelph and just trying to deal with that loss,” Walker said. Because of the frigid weather and lack of food, they believed their dog was dead.

But on Jan. 3, Logan’s owners received a very welcome phone call.

“The U.S. Coast Guard was on the other end of the phone asking me if I had lost a dog,” Walker said. “So I was pretty shocked … I was so skeptical. I was thinking what are the odds of this?”

Several days prior, the USCGC Mackinaw had been breaking ice near Lime Island on the St. Mary’s River when they noticed the lost dog.

“As we were pulling in we saw a dog come out towards us on the ice,” Lieutenant Commander Jayna McCarron told CTV Kitchener. “We did see the dog fall in the water and then scramble back up onto the island.”

After crewmembers unsuccessfully tried to lure the dog with food, they made another pass the next day.

“We saw the dog sitting right by the pier and we were so excited because we all thought the worst,” she said. “He looked very malnourished. You could see all his ribs and hip bones sticking out.”

Once Logan was safe, crewmembers found the owners’ contact information on the dog’s collar and reached out to Walker.

That’s when the couple drove hundreds of kilometres for a reunion in Cheboygan, Mich.

“He was so excited to see me and Lydia. But at the same time he was really sweet with the other members of the crew that had been so good to him.” Walker said.

After the whole ordeal, the owners had to take Logan to the vet to check on its weight loss and slightly injured paws.