Sheriff’s deputy saves dog from icy pond

    Mollie Remhof had a typical start to her day after work when she arrived home late afternoon of Monday, Feb. 16. “I’d gotten home from work, and let them outside,” she said. “Just cleaning and whatever. You check on them once in a while, and they generally don’t go anywhere.” 
    Remhof has two dogs, Roxie, an eight-year-old golden retriever, and Harley, Roxie’s seven-year-old mixed-breed. “Her (Roxie’s) daughter came back all wet, not muddy but wet,” said Remhof. “Around here, it was all muddy, so I was like ‘Where were they? What were they doing?’”
    Remhof lives on 191st Street/County 136 just north of Highway 99 with two ponds directly next to her rural residence just southwest of Greenleaf Lake. The second pond, which is between the other pond and Greenleaf Lake, has a small dock. Remhof says that pond is a part of Traxler’s Hunting Preserve “bunkhouse” property, which she says they aerate because they stock it.
    “Harley was kind of freaking out, so I put her in. I started calling for her mom, and she’s not coming, which is very odd because they generally don’t go anywhere without each other,” said Remhof. 
    Remhof’s fiance, Jeffrey Heide, then arrived home and they started looking for her dog Roxie when Remhof immediately thought of the aerated pond, which is where they found the dog. She said the dog was about 25 feet southwest of the dock and about 35 feet of the shore. The dog was on the edge of a large area of open water with just her head resting on the edge of the ice according to Remhof.
    Remhof suspects that ducks or maybe geese flew over and both dogs likely went chasing after them but Roxie couldn’t make it out of the water but Harley did.
    “She (Roxie) wasn’t struggling. She was just kind of laying there helplessly, because by that point, I’m guessing from when we started to look for her, she had to be in there at least a half an hour,” said Remhof. 
    The 911 call for help came into the Le Sueur County Sheriff’s Office dispatch at 5:42 p.m. and...

Pick up a print edition of the Feb. 26, 2026, Montgomery Messenger at a news stand to read the full story. Subscribe online for a little over a $1 a week to not miss any news in the future! Not all items are placed online for public consumption!