Hero: Animal Control officer jumps into river to rescue elderly blind, deaf dog

TENNESSEE -- A blind, deaf, elderly Jack Russell terrier named Charlie is a lucky dog.

Charlie, who is nearly 16 years old, was plucked Saturday afternoon from the middle of the Harpeth River by a Williamson County animal control officer who found him. On Monday, Charlie and his owner, Emily Massey, were reunited at the county Animal Control and Adoption Center in Franklin.

"He was so glad to see me," said Massey, a Nashville resident. "He would not quit licking me with his sewer breath. I didn't care. He was so happy."

Massey was still piecing details together Monday, puzzled about how Charlie wound up stranded on a sandbar when she wasn't near the Harpeth River on Saturday.

"The mystery of it is what's killing me," Massey said.

Massey took Charlie with her Saturday afternoon to help clean out a barn on a farm property near the intersection of Old Hickory Boulevard and Hillsboro Road. The river flows near the property but she said she was never near the water.

Nearly 16 and slow moving, Charlie rarely leaves her side, Massey said.

"He can't hear very well. He can't see," Massey said. "I thought he would stay close to me like he always does."

After she realized Charlie was missing, Massey searched in vain for Charlie.

"It wouldn't have surprised me that he walked over somewhere to die," she said.

Later Saturday, an unidentified woman who was attending an outdoor wedding near the Harpeth River heard a dog — Charlie — barking from a rocky sandbar in the river and called county officials for help, said Randall Brown, animal control officer.

Brown, who is a member of the county Swift Water Rescue Squad, took a leash, secured himself to his life preserver and hopped into the river wearing his uniform and swam out to Charlie.

Animal Control Officer Randall Brown

"I was able to get a leash around the dog," Brown said. "Me and the dog went for a swim."

Brown took Charlie to the county shelter, which reunited him with Massey after getting an email from her brother inquiring whether the shelter had any black-and-white elderly Jack Russells.

"He can't hear, he can't see, but you can tell that he knew that was his owner," said Laura Chavarria, shelter director.

(The Tennessean - June 16, 2014)