VERO BEACH — Resident Robert Betzinger cried after he rescued a dog from a swamp that was missing before, during and after Hurricane Irma.
Even though he isn’t the owner, Betzinger, an animal lover, went into the swamp waist-deep to rescue the dog.
“She was standing on her hind legs. I had a bag of boiled chicken and started feeding it to her,” said Betzinger, 49, of Vero Beach. “She climbed into my arms and then collapsed. She knew she was done.”
The dog, a 9 and a half year-old whippet named Heidi, was reported missing Aug. 17 after she darted out the front door of the home of her owner, Francine Figliolo of Vero Beach. About 3 p.m. Sept. 16, Betzinger spotted Heidi in a swamp near Oslo Road and 25th Street Southwest.
Heidi suffered two cuts to her neck from walking in brush throughout the woods and was taken to an emergency veterinarian for treatment. But, finding Heidi was no easy task.
Heidi with her owner Francine Figliolo
Figliolo said her family and friends handed out hundreds of fliers, called animal control and put Heidi’s information on the PawBoost lost and found site. Her posts were shared on Facebook, and more and more residents joined the search.
Hundreds of people that didn’t even know Figliolo were searching for Heidi, Figliolo said. Some searched as a group while others did individual searches.
Some motorists even slowed down while driving just to see if they could find Heidi. When searchers did spot Heidi, she would run away before they got a chance to catch her.
“Every time somebody saw her, and she saw that they saw her, she would run,” Figliolo said. “There’s a certain way lost dogs behave. They go into survival mode.”
One of the searchers who got close to Heidi put a towel over the dog’s head so they wouldn’t get bitten while trying to rescue the dog. But, the searcher got bit anyway, and Heidi ran off again.
Figliolio said Betzinger, whom she didn’t know before the search, was the right person at the right time to calm down Heidi. She said she was amazed at the residents who came together to find the lost dog.
“They didn’t let me give up. There’s a side of human nature I didn’t know existed,” Figliolo said. “Heidi is a miracle in that she brought us all together.”