Nassau cops rescue dog in Merrick creek, reunite it with owner

A 10-pound Jack Russell Terrier has the kindness of a dogged stranger and a Nassau cop to thank for being plucked from the frigid waters of a Merrick creek Wednesday where Nassau police found the pooch clinging to a bulkhead the day after he went missing.

“I would kind of like to know who the mystery man is who first pulled him out of the water,” said Holly Rosenberg of Merrick, whose daughter got Eddie, a rescue from Korea, just three months ago. “If it weren’t for him, the other things wouldn’t have transpired.”

The other things include the Nassau marine unit that searched the water and found the dog with his paws clutched on a bulkhead in Cedar Swamp Creek in Merrick, about a mile and a half from Rosenberg’s home, and the puncture wounds the officer received when he tried to retrieve the scared hound.

“He’s a biter,” Rosenberg recalls an officer saying as she was reunited with Eddie on Wednesday morning, ending an ordeal that began at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday and included Rosenberg running through snow-covered streets in slippers and without a coat while chasing the dog who had slipped out of the house when she opened the door.

Nassau police said they removed Eddie about 10:20 a.m. after receiving a call.

“Marine 11 responded to a call for a Jack Russell Terrier that was in the water,” detectives said in a news release. “Upon arrival the dog was observed against a bulkhead trying to stay above water by clinging to a crossbeam. Marine Bureau officers were able to remove the dog from the water and bring it on the boat.”

Rosenberg said it all began when she let Eddie out of her sight for a second while opening the door, and he ran out of the house.

“I was not able to catch him,” she said. “We searched for him and couldn’t find him.”

But the following morning, as she was searching, she got a call from her daughter, who was in Aruba on vacation, saying someone had located Eddie. That man, the original stranger, had tried to rescue Eddie but instead got bitten.

He was able to call the owner’s number because Eddie had an ID tag with contact information. Rosenberg got a call from her daughter and she went to the scene.

But when Rosenberg arrived on Frankel Boulevard in Merrick, she found the well-intentioned stranger with bloody hands and Eddie’s collar — but the dog was gone. Eddie had bitten his way out of the man’s grasp and escaped again.

That’s when police were called, and marine unit officers found a cold and shivering Eddie, who bit Officer Michael Kalab during his rescue. Rosenberg said Friday that the dog was resting comfortably in her home, seemingly oblivious to the ordeal.

“He’s one lucky dog,” she said, adding that she has moved furniture to block the exits, just in case. “I can’t believe he is alive, seriously … He doesn’t seem to know what the fuss was all about.”