It was a normal day on the water for a group of boaters in the Gulf of Mexico off Hernando Beach on Sunday, until they saw something in the water.
They spotted Jägermeister, a Jack Russell terrier, floating with a life jacket on, Bay News 9 reported. "I see a buoy -- what I thought was a buoy," Bruce Knect said. "As we're passing it, I said 'oh my gosh' it had two arms and eyes and I didn't know if it was a child."
When they brought Jägermeister aboard, they could tell he was scared. "I’m like, 'it’s a dog,'" Knect's wife, Robin, told Bay News 9. “We both screamed that at the same time. He’s looking right at us and he’s terrified, the poor little guy.”
After securing the dog, the group called the U.S. Coast Guard and learned that Jägermeister's owner was looking for him. "(The owner) had to go down into the bilge to check something and when he came back up, the dog was gone," one of the other boaters, Michael Sahr, told WTVT. Bruce Knect added, "When the owner came in, he was screaming the dog's name."
Jägermeister's owner, Joey Myrick, told WTVT that he couldn’t believe they found him. "Everybody had tears in their eyes," he said. "It was a beautiful sight after him being in the water for three hours. It's a miracle. It really is a miracle."
Boater Shawn Sahr told Bay News 9 that Myrick was "crying and the dog was licking him and so excited" when they reunited.
"That was the highlight of my day," Bruce Knect added. "We were just cruising around. We were going to sit on an island and that gave us some purpose."
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