What began as a day on the water with a friend turned into a full-on plan to save 38 dogs.
Gist told Fox News Digital that he and his friend Brad Carlisle, a State Farm agent in Tennessee, decided to go fishing together after not seeing each other in a while. Carlisle is 61 years old and works for State Farm in Tennessee.
The two guys went to Mississippi’s Grenada Lake and called a fishing guide there named Jordan Chrestman. He took them out on the water.
The group moved to a different spot after fishing early in the morning and not having much fun.
“We go about a half mile or so from where we were to another place and we start fishing, and pretty soon we can hear some dogs barking,” he said.
“Pretty soon we saw some dogs on the horizon in the water.”
Gist said that he learned after the fact that the dogs were taking part in a yearly fox run in the area.
It caught Chrestman’s eye that there was a deer in the water, and the dogs were trying to catch it.
“We went on fishing for about 10 or 15 more minutes, and Jordan [Chrestman] said, ‘Hey guys, if you don’t mind, we really need to go check on those dogs because they’re way out there in that water,'” said Gist.
Chrestman took Gist and Carlisle to the puppies.
The three men were shocked when the boat got there.
“We’re just flabbergasted because it’s dogs everywhere, and they’re all going in different directions because they can no longer see the bank on either side,” said Gist.
“And they’re all hunting dogs — we can clearly see that because they have expensive GPS radio collars on them.”
They didn’t think twice before putting the dogs on the boat so they wouldn’t die.
“We just immediately started calling dogs on the boat, you know, grabbed their collar and put them in the [bass] boat,” said Gist.
They got as many dogs as they could and crammed them on the boat until they ran out of room.
He was able to get 25 to 27 dogs together and make sure that none of the puppies tried to jump back into the water.
Gist said that when the men took the dogs back to the bank, they found the owners distressed and yelling for help.
Once the second group of dogs was saved, a man on land approached Gist and the others and asked if he could join the rescue. He had the dogs’ GPS trackers.
It was estimated that the tracker led the other guys to a second group of three to four dogs that were more than a mile from the bank.
“They were on the verge of drowning, because now they have been treading water for an hour,” he said.
“When we got back to the ramp with the last group of dogs, they wouldn’t get out of the boat, so we had to drag them out.” They were scared that they would have to go back to the water. It was awful.”
Gist said that the dog’s owner tried to pay Chrestman, but he wouldn’t take the money.
Chrestman has been called a real hero of the dog rescue by Gist.
“If Brad and I had been there in a boat by ourselves, we wouldn’t have known anything was wrong, but that 20-something-year-old kid – I’m 61, so I’m calling him a kid – he knew something needed to be done,” he said.
“That kid was smart enough to note, ‘If we don’t do something, there will be 38 dead dogs here.'” And he saved them. We all helped, but that kid is the real hero here.”
Gist tells them that he gives Chrestman all the credit, but they are thankful that he helped with the task of saving the animals.
Source: Fox News
