Incredible Story Of Dog That Survived After Five Weeks Being Lost At Sea

It sounds like a pretty fucked up pitch for movie Cast Away, but with a dog taking the place of Tom Hanks. Only this story is actually true.

A man’s beloved dog has returned five weeks after she fell overboard in the Pacific Ocean and was presumed dead.

The 18-month-old German shepherd, Luna, was spotted Tuesday on San Clemente Island, a Navy-owned training base 70 miles from San Diego.

The pup disappeared on February 10th, as her owner Nick Howarth – a commercial fisherman from San Diego – worked on a boat just two miles from the island.

Spokeswoman for Naval Base Coronado, Sandy DeMunnik, said:

They were pulling in their (lobster) traps, and one minute Luna was there, and the next minute she was gone. They looked everywhere for her. They couldn’t see her. The water was dark, and she’s dark. He insisted that he was 90 percent sure that she made it to shore because she was such a strong swimmer.

After notifying Navy personnel, Haworth searched the nearby waters for two days and Navy staff searched the island for a week- but there was still no sign of Luna.

She was presumed lost at sea and her owner gave up on any hope of seeing her alive again.

Well, that was until Tuesday morning, that is, when Navy staff were arriving for the work they spotted something a bit unusual, a dog was just sitting by the side of the road.

DeMunnik added: “She was just sitting there wagging her tail.” After staff called her, she came straight over. A biologist then examined the dog and found her a little thin, but otherwise healthy.

She’s presumed to have survived by eating rodents and dead fish that washed up on the shore.

On Wednesday afternoon, Luna was flown to a Navy base on the mainland and she’s now been reunited with her owner.

Luna has a souvenir of the experience, as her dog tag was lost but the Navy gave her a new one. The tag reads: “Keep the Faith.”