(Marco Island Sun Times)
(Moderator note: 40 years ago, when I started studying dolphins, this story would have been met with the gravest suspicion by marine mammalogists. It requires several acts of logic on the part of the dolphin, in order: 1) acknowledging that there is a strange animal in the canal, 2) that the animal does not belong in the canal, 3) that the animal belongs to the category of objects belonging to human beings, 4) that a human being might be concerned about the welfare of this animal, and 5) that if I make enough of a ruckus the humans will remove the strange animal from the place where it does not belong.
Where else but in the dolphin do you find this type of logic? Yet it was dismissed out of hand, not merely for decades but I remind you for centuries. Dolphins can not only think, they display an astonishing degree of empathy.)
Dolphin alert saves life of
Doberman
Turbo the dog rescued after being stuck 15
hours in canal
Quentin Roux • q@misuntimes.com• February
23, 2011
An 11-year-old Doberman trapped for more than 15
hours in a canal off South Bahama Avenue on Marco
Island owes his life to a dolphin that splashed and
made a ruckus until a nearby homeowner
responded.
Turbo, belonging to Cindy Burnett of Dogwood
Drive, slipped through an open fence gate Sunday,
Feb. 20, sometime after dark.
The Doberman's sister, Porsche, also strayed, but
was later found wandering just a few houses down,
Burnett said.
"I was at work (at her Little Caesar's Pizza business),
and when I got home, I searched for Turbo from
about 9:30 p.m. until 2 a.m.," Burnett said.
She eventually stopped searching; hoping that
someone might have stopped to pick up the dog,
which Burnett said loves hopping into cars.
Instead, she would find out the next morning,
Turbo had made his way down to the South Bahama
area about 500 yards from the Burnett home as the
crow flies.
At sometime during the night, he is thought to have
fallen into the canal.
Next morning, Burnett called the Humane Society
and local police, who took down details.
Just before lunch, police received a 911 call from a
South Bahama resident who said she'd rescued a
dog from a canal after she'd heard and seen a
dolphin making a "lot of noise," Burnett said.
The woman told Burnett she'd found Turbo in a
corner of the canal.
At that stage, the dog had been able to stand in
some sand because of a low tide.
Police called Burnett to tell her the dog had been
found, and Burnett rushed down to the area. She
had been preparing some posters asking people to
look out for her pet.
"He was shivering, and dehydrated, and he had
some cuts on his legs I guess from trying to jump
out," Burnett said.
She took him home, gave him an electrolyte drink
and let him rest until he regained his strength.
Burnett said she forgot to get the neighbor's name.
"I'm so grateful to her," she said. "She told me the
dolphin had attracted her attention to Turbo by
splashing, making noises and generally causing a
ruckus in the water. That's when she saw him
(Turbo) in the canal."
Attempts by the Sun Times to contact the neighbor
Tuesday and Wednesday at the house were
unsuccessful.
"I think it's just a miracle," Burnett said. "I'm so
thankful to those people."
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