38 dogs were saved in a full-fledged rescue operation that began as a day on the lake with a friend.
Following a period of time apart, 61-year-old Arkansas State Farm agent Bob Gist and his Tennessee State Farm agent friend Brad Carlisle made the decision to go fishing, according to Gist.
Reaching Grenada Lake in Mississippi, the two men made contact with a local fishing guide named Jordan Chrestman, who took them out on the water.
The group went to a different area after trying their luck at fishing early in the morning without much success.
“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,” Gist stated.
“Pretty soon we saw some dogs on the horizon in the water.”
After the meeting, Gist claimed to have learnt that the dogs were participants in an annual fox run held in the area. Chrestman saw that the dogs were trying to pursue a deer that was in the water.
“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,'” Gist stated.
Chrestman led Gist and Carlisle over to the puppies. The three men were in disbelief as the boat pulled up.
“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,” Gist stated.
“And they’re all hunting dogs —  we can clearly see that because they have expensive GPS radio collars on them.”
The men quickly loaded the dogs aboard the boat to save them from drowning. Before there was no more space on the boat, the three fisherman gathered as many dogs as they could.
After ensuring that none of the puppies tried to leap back into the water, Chrestman was able to gather between 25 and 27 dogs.
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According to Gist, the owners of the dogs were asking for assistance and were in a panic when the men brought them back to the bank.
One man on land informed Gist and the others that he had the dogs’ GPS tracker and requested if he might join the rescue after they had successfully rescued the second batch of dogs.
According to Gist, the tracker guided the other men to another pack of three or four hounds that were thought to be more than a mile away from the bank.
“They were on the verge of drowning, because now they have been treading water for an hour,” Gist stated.
“We got back over to the ramp with that last bunch of dogs… [and] we were having to drag them out of the boat because they didn’t want to get out of our boat. They were scared they were going back to the water. It was terrible.”
According to Gist, Chrestman declined to accept the payment when the dog’s owner tried to give it to him. Chrestman is a genuine hero of the dog rescue, according to Gist.
Gist expressed his gratitude for helping to bring the animals to safety, even though he gave Chrestman all the credit.
