JAFFREY — Police Officer Joe Golinski went out on the ice of a small pond off Dean Farm Road Monday. His mission — to rescue Nyla, a border-collie mix, as she was stranded, unable to regain her footing.

William and Norma Ball of Dean Farm Road in Jaffrey were snug in their home Monday night, when their three dogs began barking. It was a signal that they wanted to go out and investigate the woods nearby, William said in an interview at Agway in Peterborough on Tuesday. A little while later, the couples’ two dachshunds tramped home, but Nyla was nowhere in sight. That was at about 7 or 8 p.m., he said.

Norma said Nyla’s not coming home was unusual, as she wasn’t one to run off much on her own. Nyla is at least 15 years old, the equivalent of about age 110 in human years, William noted.

“She’s my daughter’s dog and she came east when Mary came home,” William said. That was more than 10 years ago, and Nyla has been staying with the couple ever since. “When she didn’t come back, we started to get a little concerned.”

An hour later the dog still hadn’t returned.

“We were beside ourselves. We didn’t know what to do,” Norma said.

Then, William thought he heard something outside.

“I heard a cry that reminded me of Nyla crying when she tries to sit down,” he said. “So I called and called [Nyla] for another half hour. I have Parkinson’s disease, so I wasn’t going to go outside in the ice and the cold and the weather and neither was Norma.”

Norma said she too suffers from Parkinson’s disease. “Your sense of balance is not good. You get tired easily.”

Not knowing what else to do, William said they called 911 to get some help and soon a pair of police officers arrived.

“At this point, we decided to let the professionals do their jobs,” Norma said.
On Tuesday, Golinski said he and Sgt. Craig Tucker went to the Ball residence for report of an animal in distress at 10 p.m. Monday night.

As they drove along the driveway with the spotlight on, Golinski said, they spotted Nyla on a small pond nearby. The dog had apparently been unable to get her footing on the ice.

“She was on her stomach with paws out,” he said. “[She] just gave up and laid down.”
Golinski said he and Tucker both attempted to reach the dog by different routes.
“Craig fell in at one point and I made the safe pass onto the frozen pond — inched my way out,” he said.

The water came up to about Tucker’s knee, Golinski said, and he was not injured.

When he reached the dog, Golinski said, she didn’t resist being picked up.

“All I had was a large raincoat, so I scooped her up in that and carried her all the way back to the house,” he said. “It was sad, sad to see her like that.”

Golinski said the dog had had a stroke not too long ago and wasn’t up for the walk home on her own. “She was done.”

Meanwhile, Norma said, as she and William sat waiting, there was a noise at the door.

“There were two great big policemen at the door and one of them had a bundle.”

The bundle was Nyla, very cold, but apparently unharmed.

“She wasn’t wet. She came in and I tried to wrap her in a down throw, but she was too nervous to stay still,” Norma said. “She was disoriented. She kept stepping in her water bowl.”

They called a veterinarian the next day, she said, but they were told that, if the dog appeared to be OK at that point, she probably was.

“We feel that she’s not dead yet. That’s good. I thought she was done for,” William said. “I was very glad to see her. I tell you, I didn’t believe it. I thought she’d bought the farm.”

William and Norma said they were grateful to the officers for their assistance and proud of them too.

“They seemed sensitive and quite human,” William said. “We appreciated their concern and their professionalism.”

One of the officers was wet, William said, so he offered them a cup of coffee, but the officers couldn’t stay and were soon on their way.

William said it was a relief to have Nyla back safe and sound, even though she doesn’t technically belong to them.

“We’re all God’s creatures,” he said.

This story appeared on Page 5 of the Dec. 24 Ledger-Transcript