Family dog rescued from Lake St. Clair after 28 hours with community help

A Lakeshore family’s dog has been saved from an ice-covered Lake St. Clair after 28 hours.

Around 10:30 a.m. on Wednesday, owner A. J. Bondy let his two dogs out into his backyard, just off the Puce River canal. The canal leads into Lake St. Clair.

According to Bondy, his dogs, Charlie and Rex, got out of the yard and headed onto the ice-covered Lake St. Clair. Charlie came back home, but Rex didn’t.

It turned out that Rex had travelled two to three kilometres out onto the ice, all the way to Belle River. It took 28 hours of trying to find and capture the dog.

The family posted on social media asking for help, while also calling police, fire, and the Coast Guard. Rex was seen on the lake near Renaud Line Road on Thursday afternoon.

Matt Leavoy, who was on a snowmobile to help try to catch Rex, was on the phone with Bondy.

“I was directing him and kind of seeing them pass each other once or twice,” said Bondy.

“He found him and started chasing him. He got off, and the dog came to him, so he put him on the sled.”

Rex was then given to Jamie Leavoy and Steve Coulter, who took him back to shore.

“I was in tears,” said Bondy.

“Pretty much everybody was in tears, especially my wife, the kids. Even the people, it wasn’t their dog; they were crying and happy. Everyone was super relieved.”

Without the help of the community, Bondy said Rex wouldn’t have been found. The Bondy family spotted him a few times, but was too far to rescue, so they tried to keep tracking his location.

“If it wasn’t for the community and everyone on Facebook sharing… I can’t remember how many shares and thousand people commenting and stuff,” explained Bondy.

“It couldn’t have been done without the community of Lakeshore.”

According to the family, Rex seems healthy and not hurt but is really tired.

Jesse Schouten of Lucky K-9 also helped the family for more than eight hours find their dog.

- With files from AM800.