DOGGONE LUCKY: MAN REUNITED WITH CANINE BRIDGE-JUMPER

Until this week, Derrick Smith wondered if his dog "Queenie" might be able to swim. He found out Sunday in a big way.

The 6-month-old female rott~weiler Sunday evening jumped into the water from the Mississippi River bridge at Cape Girardeau. Three men in a boat rescued the dog afterwards, Cape Girardeau police said.

"I was kind of tripping on it because I didn't think a dog would go off and do something like that go and jump off a bridge, commit suicide," Smith said Wednesday.

"I said to myself that she was lucky to still be living really."

A Southeast Missouri State University football player from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Smith, 21, said he got his dog back from police Sunday night. Smith has had the dog for three or four weeks, he said.

The dog broke off a chain behind a friend's house in the 300 block of South Lorimier, where he keeps her, said Smith, a senior studying criminal justice who lives in an apartment on North Ellis. Nearby just east of the intersection of Lorimier and Morgan Oak is the bridge.

Early Wednesday evening, Queenie was back on her chain and tied to a small tree albeit with several extra links. She lay on the ground with a white tennis shoe and a yellow-green tennis ball nearby and indifferent to the fact that she was the topic of conversation between her owner and a reporter.

Police reported the dog jumped into the river at about 7:30 p.m. Three workers from Lone Star rescued the dog, said police, while they were performing some type of tests. According to police, the men said it took them about a mile to catch up with the dog.

Smith attributed the dog's trip onto the bridge to curiosity. He said she also may have been trying to get back to a house on South Middle that he previously kept her at. Smith said he has kept the dog at the location on Lorimier for a little more than a week and frequently walks her down by the river.

The dog probably jumped because of all the car horns and lights, he said. "She was probably just terrified really because she's not accustomed to being in that type of situation."

City Animal Control Officer Charles Stucker said he reunited the dog and Smith. The dog had no identification tags, but Stucker said Smith had reported earlier to police that the dog was missing.

"It was an extremely lucky dog. God was watching after this dog," Stucker said.

The dog, he said, could have sustained an injury by jumping into the river with it full of driftwood.

Stucker said he didn't think anyone had driven the dog out onto the bridge. At that time of the evening, and with all the traffic crossing the bridge, someone would have witnessed the dog being put out, he said.

After his friend told him his dog was missing, Smith said, he went out in search of it. A couple of kids told him they saw the dog walking out on the bridge, but he said he didn't consider going onto the bridge to look for a dog.

When he picked the dog up from police and an officer told him what happened, he said, he didn't really believe the story. Smith said he had heard stories where people said that anyone who jumped into the Mississippi River would drown.

"I felt her coat and everything and she was still wet. That kind of changed my opinion then," he said.

Smith added he wanted to thank the men who rescued the dog. Police said they didn't get the men's names.