Dog helps confused baby turtle hatchling

Waves crashed against the shore and then retreated. The sun had just risen and lit up the sky above Surfside early on Thursday morning. And a hatchling sea turtle had taken a wrong turn. Lucky for the turtle that Liza Greenberg’s dog, Bandit, sniffed him out struggling through the sand grains and waddling his way in the wrong direction, away from the ocean. “Bandit just got so excited,” said Greenberg, 49, of Surfside. “He was wiggling and dancing around.”

Greenberg and Bandit, a 7-year-old King Charles Cavalier Spaniel, were taking their morning walk on the beach at about 7:15 a.m. It was the same walk the two have taken since she got Bandit more than six years ago. But when she turned around, the foot-tall, 17-pound dog had disappeared. Greenberg backtracked.



“There he was, sniffling at something in the sand,” she said. As she approached, Bandit took a few steps back to reveal the hatchling sea turtle tottering west and away from the ocean where it should have been heading. “I just became excited like a little kid,” said Greenberg, who called beach rangers. Greenberg, Bandit, and the beach ranger took the wayward hatchling to the ocean where they released it.

Dogs are not allowed on the beach at Surfside, but an exception was made for Bandit, who barked in excitement as he watched the turtle swim away. The pooch got into the ocean, too, as the hatchling got further and further away from shore. “It was life. It was beautiful,” Greenberg said. Bandit’s discovery on Thursday was the second time he had found a wayward hatchling. Once he found a whole nest, and Greenberg summoned beach rangers who cordoned off the area so that the turtles could safely make it to the water.