Dog owner tells of her pet's bizarre near-suicidal swim far out to sea before a lifeboat crew came to rescue him

​Karen Millar nearly lost her six-year-old German Shepherd to the waves after he went on a near-suicidal mission to swim out to sea at Murlough, just to the north of Newcastle.

Ultimately, he was rescued by a lifeboat.

A 36-year-old horsebreeder from Ballynahinch, Mrs Millar spoke to the News Letter from the airport, just as she was jetting off to the Olympics to watch the showjumping.

She has a caravan down in Newcastle, and had taken Thor out for a beach walk with his brother Stark on Wednesday evening when she threw a ball for him, landing perhaps 50 feet out (15 metres).

Thor went to retrieve it... but then didn't know when to stop.

She thinks what might have happened is Thor saw the outline of the Mournes in the distance and, instead of swimming back the way he came to the beach, thought the mountains were the nearest land.

"I honestly don't know what came over him. He just kept on going out and out and out," she said.

"I think he got confused. He kind of looked back once, then kept on swimming. He just wouldn't come back.

"By this time he was maybe 100 metres out (330ft)."

She considered going after him, but decided against it.

She called 999 and got the coastguard. They said they don't normally send out lifeboats for dogs... but would in this case.

"The woman who answered the phone was so helpful. She said: 'Start clapping your hands, because sometimes they can't hear your voice’."

As the clapping and whistling continued, with Mrs Millar in tears, the top of Thor’s black head receded out to "a few hundred metres".

Meanwhile, his brother Stark was concerned too: "He was kind of thinking: where are you going?”

When the lifeboat arrived, Thor was "struggling". Once aboard, "he was shaking – we couldn't even get him out of the boat".

What about now?

He is due to visit the vet in case he inhaled a lot of seawater, said Mrs Millar.

"But he slept all night and seems to be ok," and is largely getting "back to his normal self".

She was very thankful to both the phone assistants and the lifeboat crew for their help.

"It was a very, very lucky escape," said Mrs Millar.

"If those people didn't come when they did... he was honestly about five minutes from drowning. He'd been in there for 45 minutes."

The RNLI crew that rescued him was onboard Newcastle’s inshore lifeboat, Eliza, which put to sea at 7.40pm.

The RNLI said: “The lifeboat was launched as it was feared the dog’s owner may have attempted to enter the water to rescue the dog.”

Newcastle lifeboat operations manager Dave Bowden, said: “Thanks to the swift and coordinated actions of our volunteer crew and Newcastle coastguard this dog was rescued and brought to safety.

"Our advice is never to enter the water after your dog but to try and call them back to you from a place of safety. If you are concerned call 999 and ask for the coastguard.”