What Would an Active Survivalist Do?

There was a case in New Zealand recently where a young man jumped into a river to save what he thought was a drowning dog only to drown himself and the dog survived. At the funeral there were glowing testimonies about how this young man was so nice in everything he did. He used to spend a lot of time in his room or with his grandmother reading the Bible, always there to help out and never a cross word. I can't remember exactly the details of how good a person he was but it was certainly a tragic waste of a young life. There's a common saying that only the good die young and there is some truth in this. It seems that both ends of the spectrum lead to an early demise, being too good or too evil.

If you do a Google search for people drowning while saving dogs you get quite a few results. For instance:

A man drowned when he jumped into the sea to rescue a dog. His body was pulled from water off Blackpool promenade after a major search by police and coastguards. Link


So what would an Active Survivalist do in this situation? Risking your life to save a dog is clearly not an intelligent option. Indeed dogs are naturally good swimmers and drowning is extremely unlikely. In fact if the dog drowns you have absolutely no chance of surviving in the same conditions. Also, the spectacle of a drowning dog, not something one sees everyday, will ensure that the day is not entirely wasted. Perhaps you could, if you like dogs, get a branch or stick and try and help it out, but I'd be careful, it might be rabid or something.

The lesson in all this is that you don't want to be too good a person. Your obituary should have little to say because hopefully you have out-lived all those that had anything nice to say about you which wasn't much anyway. Can't see anyone at my funeral blathering on about how he loved dogs.......

All you never wanted to know about saving drowning dogs

Step 1d: As a last resort, swim to the dog. Protect yourself. Bring something for the dog to cling to or climb on and be pulled to shore.

Yeah right.

Step 5d: Alternately (after 30 seconds), hold the dog's mouth and lips closed and blow firmly into its nostrils.

I don't think so!