Rescued Puppy Finds Home in Berkeley – With Rescuers

By Charles Burress

A home has been found for the large black puppy found chilled and swimming toward Angel Island in San Francisco Bay a week ago and brought home by a Berkeley man in the inflatable boat that he uses to commute to work.

The man, Adam Cohen, and his wife, Lisa Grodin, have been seeking the owner, and since they already have a dog, they were also collecting names of people interested in adopting her if the owner didn't show up.

But no owner has stepped forward, and now, assuming an owner doesn't materialize, they've decided to adopt the puppy themselves, Grodin told Patch Monday.

"The puppy has bonded with us, and us with her!" Grodin said. "She has become part of the family."

The pup was plucked from the cold water by windsurfers and was lying exhausted on one of their boards before sunset on Monday evening, Aug. 12, as Cohen was commuting back home in his motorized craft from his job in San Francisco. He saw the windsurfers gathered together with sails down and detoured over, suspecting that someone was in distress.

He brought the dog back to the couple's North Berkeley home that night. She was taken to the Berkeley Dog & Cat Hospital the next day and found to be in good health and without an embedded ID chip. 

They took her back Friday to get shots, and the vet estimated her age at 6-7 months old, Grodin said. She appeared to be a mix of lab and bullmastiff, Grodin said.

What to name the foundling?

The couple have been calling her 'Richard Parker,' from The Life of Pi," Grodin said, referring to the film about a boy stranded in a small boat at sea with a tiger named Richard Parker.

One of the windsurfers who found her, Ed Coyne of San Rafael, said he likes the name "Lucky," which is what the windsurfers dubbed her in light of her rescue. He paid an hour-long visit to the pup on Friday in Berkeley.

"We are still discussing her name," Grodin via email. "We are honoring the wind surfer/rescuer's request to include 'Lucky' in her name. It's a bit hard to get past 'Richard Parker,' but we'll see."

Getting along with Zephyr

And how is Lucky Richard Parker getting along with Zephyr, another lab mix who was already living with the couple? Zephyr seemed inclined toward peaceful co-existence when the puppy showed up, as long as the newcomer didn't go near Zephyr's food bowl.

"Our wonderful seven year old dog is increasingly tolerant of her, and he is helping us to train her," Grodin reported today. "She watches him and imitates his responses to basic commands. She is great with other dogs and with children." 

The credit for her survival belongs chiefly to the windsurfers, Cohen said.

"The windsurfers were the real heroes," he told the San Francisco Chronicle. "They stayed in the water to make sure she stayed alive. I am certain that without their efforts, she wouldn't have made it."

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