A Kiwi kayaker on a cross-country trip on Canada’s creeks and rivers took a brief detour to rescue a man’s dog who was trapped under a log.
For all her strength, Ivy, a 14-year-old Great Pyrenees had been wasted by the mud of a river in Manitoba, and after wandering too far beyond her owner’s property, was trapped and couldn’t escape.
Ivy’s fortitude had been sapped away by the heavy mud weighing down her fur, and with only enough energy to keep her head above water, Tom Hudson—a quite unlikely hero, found her just in time.
Flying to BC from his home in New Zealand Tom Hudson had crossed Canada as far as Manitoba near The Pas when he heard faint barking and decided to take a detour to investigate on the morning of July 29th.
Unbeknownst to him, Ivy’s owner had been looking for her all the previous day, but heavy brush prevented him from seeing or hearing the elderly pooch, who was stuck just a quarter of a mile from her home.
Hudson tied up his canoe, lifted the log off her back, and carried her through knee-deep mud before attempting to position her comfortably on the canoe. She had never been afloat before, and Hudson, who was documenting his cross-country canoe quest on Instagram and YouTube, snapped a self-explanatory photo of Ivy’s first impressions.
He paddled about 400 yards downstream and found a dock. He plopped the Pyrenees down and went to ring the doorbell, hoping whoever answered would be able to help.
As it happened, they could.
“She’s a pretty lucky old dog that he came by when he did,” said owner Tom Stait, who opened the door and saw the pair covered in mud. “Because he could have went the other way on the other side of the river and he would never have seen her. I probably would have never found her.”
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The New Zealand accent must have been as startling as the fact that a stranger was returning his dog. Hudson stuck around to help wash Ivy off, after which Stait invited him to eat with his family and rest for the night. Hudson accepted, and told CBC News reporting on the story that he could have done nothing else but help the dog.
“Being hundreds of meters from your home, probably able to hear your owner, probably able to smell your owner … I just thought it would have been a terrible way to go,” he said. “So there was no way I could have not done what I did.”
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His time on the canoe ended before he could reach Montreal, but Hudson plans to return next spring to finish the voyage. He told CBC News that he left with a feeling that all the world’s kind people were located in Canada, endearing the nation to him as much as the wilderness and wildlife he had seen along his route.
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