Edition:
January 21, 2005
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The Friday Flyer Assistant Editor
Jamie Ensign feels like a hero and well she should since the 11-year-old 6th grader from Canyon Lake Middle School saved not one but two critters during the recent heavy rains. On the first occasion, she was taking her own dog outside to go to the bathroom at her waterfront home when she noticed a golden retriever barking and pawing at something in the lake a few docks away.
She yelled at her mom, Kelly Ensign, who was working in the kitchen, that a dog seemed to be barking at something in the lake. When Kelly looked out her kitchen window, she had a slightly higher angle on the scene than her daughter and saw a black Labrador’s head bobbing in the water next to the seawall.
In the pounding rain, Jamie and Kelly then went down to their own dock to watch the dogs and see what would happen. They noticed the Labrador was situated between two flooded docks, trying to climb up on a seawall. But it kept falling back and sinking under the water for the few minutes they watched.
Finally, Jamie raced through the neighbors’ yards to reach the dog and try to help it up on the seawall. Tug as she might, she couldn’t give the heavy dog the leverage it needed so, even though she was dressed up to go the movies, she laid down on her belly in the rain and mud to get her arms under the dog’s rear end to hoist it up.
As Kelly watched from her dock, the thought crossed her mind that the situation could be dangerous if the dog bit Jamie or if she slipped and fell into the rush of water coming out of a nearby storm drain but, by then, it was too late to do anything but watch.
Finally the dog was able to scramble out of the water and join its companion and, a few moments later, Jamie saw the owner come down and call his dogs. In the pouring rain, she tried to explain that one of his dogs had fallen in the lake and she had rescued it, but he simply took his dogs and walked away without understanding the extent of the little girl’s heroism.
Later that week, as the water receded from the flooded docks, the Ensign family noticed there appeared to be a rock or lump of clay and a log lying on the neighbor’s dock. After leaving town for a couple of days, they came back and noticed the lump was still there. Upon investigating, Jamie saw that it was an up-side-down turtle and quickly righted it and set it back in the water. As it began swimming in circles, she dipped her hand in the water and it appeared to come over and touch her hand with its nose. Then it swam away.
“So she saved two animals,” says her mom. “That’s so her personality!” Jamie is the granddaughter of Sharon Mole, floral designer at Canyon Lake Flowers in the Towne Center.
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