When Charlee the American bulldog was spooked by Halloween fireworks on Willows Beach, she jumped in the water and swam for it — all the way to Mary Tod Island.
The saga for Charlee, one of two dogs in Oak Bay that had to be rescued on the weekend, began on Friday night, said owner Chris Rempel.
Rempel’s brother-in-law and a friend were walking the seven-year-old dog at Willows Beach when Charlee got spooked by fireworks at about 9 p.m., Rempel said. “She disappeared into the darkness before they even knew which direction she had left. Basically we had no idea where she went.
“She’s not a runner. We’ve never lost her before.”
Almost immediately, family and friends came together to search, and stayed out looking for Charlee until about 3 a.m.
“We called it a night and got back on it first thing in the morning.”
Posters were made up and distributed during the day, Rempel said. By sheer coincidence, he said, one of his friends was dropping posters off at Oak Bay Marina when news of a stray dog was spreading there. Someone from the tackle shop passed along the details.
“He said, ‘This is the strangest thing, but we just received word that there is a distressed-looking pitbull on Mary Tod Island of all places.’ It was the most random thing.”
Mary Tod Island is about half a kilometre from the nearest point of Willows Beach, but considerably closer to land around the shoreline at Oak Bay Marina.
Rempel showed up and the marina employee offered to take him to the island on one of the facility’s boats. “We went around the side of the island. I started calling for the dog and she emerged from bushes.
“I was just floored. I couldn’t believe it.
“I’m not sure if Charlee swam directly from [Willows Beach], but somehow she got there in pitch-black darkness.”
Charlee was found about 4 p.m. Saturday, so it had been a lengthy ordeal. She was soon safely back home, where she wasted little time in downing about three bowls of food and five bowls of water.
Rempel was impressed with the reaction from two animal-welfare groups, Find Lost and Escaped Dogs and Arrowsmith Animal Resource Foundation , both of which offered help after seeing his online postings about Charlee.
Also along the Oak Bay coast, Mopsie the border collie went on the lam, wound up perched helplessly on the wall of a ravine and was rescued by the Oak Bay Fire Department.
Mopsie, who dug a hole under a backyard fence in Fairfield to make her escape on Saturday, was spotted by an animal-control officer on Beach Drive, but got away after bounding onto Victoria Golf Course.
Several waterfront properties were searched and Mopsie turned up on a ledge with the ocean below, said Ian Fraser of Victoria Animal Control Services.
“It had jumped across this little inlet.”
The spot was too slippery for the dog to go anywhere, Fraser said.
Luckily, the Oak Bay Fire Department recently sent members on a rope-rescue course and was able to pluck Mopsie from danger, Fraser said.
Fraser said that Victoria Animal Control Services received an unusually high number of calls on Saturday — 33. Most were related to pets alarmed by fireworks.
