Man saves Nutty pup with mouth to snout

A DOG breeder saved his eight-week-old puppy with mouth-to-mouth after it almost drowned in a garden pond.

Quick-thinking John Greene gave motionless Jack Russell Nutty heart massage and the kiss of life in a frantic 10-minute rescue bid.

The 42-year-old Wicklow man was alerted to the exhausted animal sinking to the bottom of the pond when chickens he keeps in his backyard kicked up a commotion.

“Nutty was out rambling around the garden. I’d gone upstairs, looked out through the window and saw there was a disturbance,” he said.

“I could see the puppy sinking slowly to the bottom of the pond. The poor fella was exhausted, he must have been in the water for 15 to 20 minutes.

“The little fella just couldn’t climb out. He was sinking, motionless, not breathing and almost blue.”

The dog lover ran outside his home in Greystones, Co Wicklow, pulled the freezing pup from the water and began heart massage and mouth-to-snout after feeling a very faint heartbeat every few seconds.

“I’d heard of horse whisperers but never dog breathers,” he said.

Mr Greene checked lifeless Nutty’s and saw his gums and lips had turned blue.

“I don’t know a lot about CPR but I covered his nose and breathed for him and then lifted him up to see if any water would come up. It was an automatic reaction,” he said.

“I pressed on his chest, shaking him around a little bit, then some fluid came out and then I heard a little yelp, and another.”

A week later, Nutty is fighting fit and enjoying the back garden again — although the pond remains off limits.

“We’re keeping him, he’s not going anywhere now,” Mr Greene said.