Sedge, Chesapeake Bay retriever

DOGGONE

Sedge's journey finally brings him back home
Man's Best Friend Back Where He Belongs
Story by Cathy Dyson
September 15, 2006 12:50 am

FOR 31/2 MONTHS, Jerry Decatur thought his dog was gone for good--and it tore him up inside.

Jerry Decatur lost his dog Sedge in May, and got him back after 31/2 months. 'Yeah, there were tears when I got him back,' he said of the reunion. 'Sedge went crazy, too; he missed his dad.'

Sedge runs past some crab pots on the beach just after dawn at Widewater, where the Decatur family keep their crab boats.

The last time he saw Sedge, a Chesapeake Bay retriever with curly brown hair and a head shaped like a bear, the dog was on the shore of the Potomac River.

Jerry, 29, has been working the same piece of river off the Widewater peninsula in North Stafford since he was 13, and he rarely goes anywhere without Sedge or Bo, his black Labrador retriever.

But on the afternoon of May 15, the boat was filled with crab pots, so Jerry had to take off alone.

Sedge jumped into the river after him, but that wasn't unusual. The dogs often escort Jerry out, "like little boats around a cruise ship," said Jerry's mother, Terry Decatur.

Then they swim back to shore. But something different happened that afternoon, as Jerry the "Crab Man" was about to discover.

A search for Sedge

On the spring day Jerry last saw his dog, his brother Jason was on shore, near the cabin the Decatur family has used for generations. Jason saw Sedge go after the boat and called the dog--and Jerry on his cell phone--but neither responded.

Jerry went off to work, not knowing Sedge was in the river. He returned hours later and figured Sedge had gone home, a few blocks away on Decatur Road. When there was no sign of Sedge, Jerry got worried.

He got back into the boat and looked up and down the Potomac, checking the wooded outline of Widewater and the developed areas of Quantico Marine Corps Base.

He put a few shirts on the Virginia and Maryland shores, so if Sedge found them he would smell his scent and wait there for him.

The dog wasn't wearing a collar because Jerry had taken it off the day before to give Sedge a bath. Sedge typically lies in the middle of the boat, among bushels of blue crabs and boxes of shrimp heads used for bait, and his collar starts to stink after a while, Jerry said.

For days after Sedge disappeared, Jerry scanned the river, called county animal shelters and stared at every boat that went by, looking for his beloved brown dog. Sedge was 3, and Jerry had raised him from a puppy.

When days turned into weeks and then months, Jerry figured Sedge was long gone. He hoped someone had given him a good home, but he feared the worst.

Jerry said goodbye to Sedge during a memorial service on the water--a moment so emotional he still doesn't want to talk about it.

A chance conversation

Jerry's mother, Terry, regularly attends the 8:30 a.m. service at North Stafford Baptist Church.

But the week before Aug. 27 was a tough one. Business had been brisk at the 610 Car Wash on Garrisonville Road, which she owns, and she decided to sleep in a little. "Which is very unusual," she said.

Terry went to the 11 a.m. service instead. Afterward, the pastor invited everyone to stay for fellowship and food. Terry normally wouldn't be comfortable eating if she hadn't brought a dish, but she was encouraged to stay, so she got in line to fix a plate.

Most of her relatives attended the earlier service, so she looked around for someone she knew. She sat with Deacon Don Wicker and his wife, Joan. Their daughter and son-in-law, Angela and Shaun McNerney, were there, too. Shaun is a Marine corporal, stationed at Quantico.

The group made small talk about the weather and current events. Someone mentioned there was banana pudding, and everyone agreed they didn't need it, but it sure did sound good. As the group sampled dessert, Angela said something about the big brown dog she had, and how she was supposed to walk him to lose weight.

Terry's ears perked up.

When Angela said the dog had been found in the river, Terry almost choked.

With a mouthful of pudding, she asked the McNerneys what kind of dog it was.

When Shaun answered that is was a Chesapeake Bay retriever, Terry said, "Oh, my God, that is my son's dog."

The pace of conversation picked up from there. Terry and Shaun traded details about what the dog looked like, how loyal he was and the way he wrapped his front paws around a person in a bear hug. The more she heard, the more Terry was convinced this dog was her son's.

But the more excited she got, the more worried Angela became. She had fallen in love the first time she saw the dog she named Bear. She said he had the "same kindness in his eyes" as Benny Boy, a Rottweiler mix she once owned.

Angela works at Aquia Garrisonville Animal Hospital, and she made sure the dog had all the medical care he needed. She also bought him all kinds of treats, toys and extra-large pink shirts to wear.

As the conversation at church proceeded, she said to herself, "Oh, God, please, no." She wished her husband would just shut up.

But Shaun had lost a dog once and never found it. He and his wife had agreed when they adopted the dog from the Quantico Animal Shelter that they would return him if the rightful owner surfaced.

Angela's heart fell, just as Jerry's had a few months earlier.

"I kinda knew it was his," she said, "but I didn't want it to be."

An unforgettable reunion

Shaun and Terry put their plates aside and left church to get Jerry.

He was working at his roadside stand, where he sells cooked crabs on the weekends. He had on his jeans and the same white rubber boots he wears on the boat. He was in too big a hurry to put on a shirt.

The trio arrived at the McNerney townhouse at Quantico, and Shaun unlocked the basement door. Jerry and his mother could hear toenails clicking against concrete.

"Jerry hollered out, 'Sedge,' and that dog just bolted up the steps, jumped up on Jerry and knocked him over," Terry said. "They were rolling around on the ground, and Jerry was saying, 'Oh, thank God, thank God,' with big 'ol tears coming down his face."

When the crying stopped, Jerry finally learned what had happened.

A military policeman at the base spotted Sedge in the river about six miles from the Decatur cabin. Cpl. Koda Harper got Sedge out of the water and took him to the base's animal shelter.

Jerry didn't know there was such a facility. Many people don't, because it's not a public shelter, Harper said.

Jerry told Shaun he'd be in the couple's debt forever. He offered them joint custody; he'd keep Sedge during the week, and they could take him on the weekends to Lunga Reservoir, where Sedge liked to chase the sticks and balls Shaun threw.

Jerry also said he'd been on a waiting list for three years to get a female Chesapeake Bay retriever from a kennel near the Great Lakes. Jerry would breed the female to Sedge, and the McNerneys could have the pick of the litter.

There was one problem.

Angela had had the dog neutered in mid-August. She'd waited for almost two months after adopting him to have the surgery.

"No one came for him, so I figured he was mine," she said.

Jerry wasn't thrilled by the news, but quickly decided amid the bear hugs that it didn't matter.

"That's all right, I got my dog back," he said. "I don't care how he came back to me, as long as I got him back."

Since returning Sedge to Jerry, the McNerneys have adopted a border collie mix they named Nikki. Angela still has pictures of Sedge on her cell phone.
Source: Fredericksburg http://fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2006/092006/09152006/221153/index_html
Printer-friendly page HERE