An area golden retriever is being hailed as "a very good boy" after saving a drowning fawn off the coast of Long Island over the weekend.
In video of the rescue uploaded to Facebook, Storm the dog can be seen paddling through the Port Jefferson Harbor with the baby deer in its mouth. The pooch eventually tows the rescue to shore, before nuzzling its belly. The video ends with Storm gently nudging the still-breathing animal's paws, so we're going to go ahead and count this as a successful dry land rescue and not worry too much about what happens next.
The New York Times did speak with the director of the Save the Animals Rescue Foundation, who acknowledged that there are a lot of different reasons that dogs put animals in their mouths. “I think the dog did a very good thing, but I’m very realistic about what dogs do—dogs tend to chew these little deer up,” she said.
But according to Storm's person, that's just not in his nature. "I was there, and if anybody knows Storm, they know that’s not in his heart,” Mark Freeley, a personal injury lawyer from East Setauket, told the Times. “He is the most gentle, gracious dog you ever want to meet.”
In addition to his compassionate character, Storm is also responsible for one of the most precious New York Times corrections of all time:
An earlier version of this article misidentified the breed of Storm the dog. He is a golden retriever, not a Labrador retriever. (He is still a good boy.)
Good work, pup.
