Vasco Vellez didn’t wake up expecting to do some hero stuff a few days ago. He expected to go for a fun little foil surf and then continue on with his day. Instead, though, he very likely saved a dog’s life on Australia’s Gold Coast. After he’d caught a few waves, he was nearing the shoreline on his electric foilboard when he noticed a fishing kayak flipped over in the waves. “As I’m getting towards the shore, I noticed that there was a canoe — a sort of kayak — overturned and there were people in the water,” Vellez said. “I went, ‘okay, who brings a kayak to this?'”
As he cruised by, though, he noticed something else: a dog frantically paddling around, obviously confused and in distress. “So as I turned around,” Vellez continued, “I noticed there was a dog out there. So I asked the guys, but no one responded, and I thought, ‘well, this isn’t right.’
The man in the water by the kayak was already being helped by surfers, but the dog had been left to fend for itself, so Vellez did what he needed to do. He turned back around and began whistling for the dog. And lo and behold, the dog knew exactly what to do. “The dog is confused as hell and swimming towards the waves,” he explained. “He didn’t know where he was going because he couldn’t see the shore. So I decided that I’d better give him a hand because everybody was trying to help the guy — bloody idiot. The poor dog… I laid on the board and let the dog climb on my back.”
After the dog climbed on, a rescue ski showed up to collect it. Then, as if he hadn’t done a good enough deed for the day, Vellez buzzed over to collect the kayaker’s shoes.
Afterwards, Vellez explained that he didn’t mean to make the kayaker feel bad. “In hindsight,” he wrote on Facebook, “and as pointed out by a good friend, they possibly do everything together. This is much like myself, as I try to do as much as possible with my husky Foil. Apologies to the kayak owner if I came across harsh. I was just overwhelmed by the pup’s distress.”
Everyone, including the dog, was taken safely to shore, and Vellez was left with some very good footage and whole lot of good karma.
