Here's a brief account and a few pictures of the Dogwood/Snowberry adventures!

Their crates were open, and Snowberry was first to peek his head out. He slowly made his way out of the crate and into the water. He turned back towards the beach and climbed up, then turned back towards water. He finally started to swim a bit and then there was some big splashing and gulls circling him. Could he have found a fishy already?! We hope! We watched him swim around for a good ten minutes, occasionally glancing over at Dogwoods crate, which he was still in. Actually, he turned around so his head was facing away from the water! Apparently what Snowberry was doing looked like no fun. 

The Wolf Hollow volunteers pushed the crate closer to the water, until he was about 2 inches deep. They tipped his crate, we could hear him trying to scamper to the very back. Eventually the volunteers had to turn the crate completely upside down so he had no choice but to fall out of it into the water. He just stared at us. After a few minutes went by, one of the volunteers threw some pebbles his way to make a splash. He didn't move. After a few more minutes another volunteer walked right up to him and started kicking her boot right near his face to splash him with water. He looked up at her and jumped (as much as a seal can jump) right up at her. If he were a dog he'd have jumped right in her arms! It was so sad, you could almost hear him "But mama, I want to stay with you!" Eventually he started to swim away, but swam by all of us first, looking right up at us. Oh, poor baby, didn't want to go out in the big world! He also didn't really seem to get the concept of swimming like a normal harbor seal. He kept the "banana" pose the whole time, trying to keep his back flippers out of the water instead of using them to propel himself. Maybe his flipper tags were making him a bit uncomfortable? 

SeaDoc Society says we should be able to track them on a daily basis, I think starting in a week, on their website. 


~Heather Hill