Prieta disappeared on July 4. For two weeks, her owner in East Palo Alto, California, searched every corner without finding her, while also carrying the weight of having recently lost several close family members. When someone called 911 after seeing a little dog swimming nonstop in San Francisco Bay, no one imagined it was her.
Menlo Park firefighters, East Palo Alto police officers, and a drone operator named Tom coordinated a rescue using binoculars and GPS coordinates. They pulled her from the water exhausted, wrapped her in a jacket, and discovered a wound on her cheek, probably from a seagull attack.
A microchip did the rest: within an hour, Prieta was back in her family’s arms. Weeks later, she reunited with each of her rescuers to thank them for what they truly gave back to her: a little comfort in the midst of grief.
