Seal May Be Gone, but Not the Seaworthy Dog

Diesel, a golden retriever whose aquatic fame has spread to nearly every mariner in Newport Harbor, has lost a friend and playmate. The harbor seal with whom Diesel has frolicked happily for the past three years has been missing this year.

Gary Hill, Diesel’s master, and I speculated idly on the fate of the missing seal. We were sitting in the sun on a wood bench on the pier outside Hill’s office. Diesel insisted on going into the office and coming out with a green tennis ball in his mouth, entreating us, with perked-forward ears, soft pleading eyes and tail wagging, to play with him. A woman admirer down the peninsula had given Diesel a bag of these tennis balls. He had promptly chewed open the bag and distributed the balls around the office.

It was a fine day and fine place for speculating. A bench on a fine autumn morning--the breeze barely whispering across the bay and the Edwardian cupola of the Balboa Pavilion immediately to the east standing boldly against the sky--is made for this kind of talk.

Frolicking Elsewhere

Had a shark eaten Diesel’s seal? Had the seal sickened and died? Had it found an enchanting companion of its own kind and taken up frolicking on a distant shore?

One of the hands of Hill’s Boat Service Inc. walked by us, saying that a big bull seal had come into the harbor yesterday and Diesel had jumped off the fuel dock right on top of him. Diesel had hit the water barking excitedly and splashed about furiously, but the seal had no sense of play, it seemed, and had swum away.

When Diesel’s old playmate was around, they used to swim together for at least 30 to 40 minutes at a time.

“It’s amazing,” observed Hill, “that in all the years Diesel has been playing with seals they’ve never bitten a snip out of him.”

And they could, something awful. But seals are intelligent creatures and they seem to know that another mammal that barks similarly to them and jumps in for a swim cannot be all that threatening. Besides, they can outmaneuver and outswim Diesel, although the dog is no slouch as a swimmer.

“He frequently swims across the channel halfway to Balboa Island and back again just for exercise,” Hill said. “His swimming really keeps the fleas off him.”

Diesel’s antics with his favorite old seal playmate in the water were so vigorously and boisterously frolicsome that one woman, seeing it for the first time, cried out in alarm that the poor dog was drowning.

A registered purebred, Diesel was given to Hill in a shoe box by his wife, Sandi, seven years ago and ever since has accompanied Hill to work daily. Diesel took to the life of a water dog when he was a mere puppy.

Diesel trotted out with another tennis ball, and when he saw I wasn’t anxious to play ball he rolled over on his back, his legs in the air, wanting to be petted. He assumes that rather undignified pose whenever customers bring their boats alongside the floats for fuel.

Another of his favorite games is to bob for anchovies and mackerel. When a fishing boat comes in for refueling, Diesel jumps aboard and heads for the live bait tank. When he catches an anchovy he eats with relish. He’s not fond of mackerel as food, only as game. When he catches a mackerel he trots up the dock’s gangway and deposits it in the front of the office. He probably eats a dozen anchovies a week. No skipper has become upset over Diesel’s raiding of his bait tank. They figure any dog that relishes this kind of hors d’oeuvre is welcome to it.

Diesel Goes Along

When Hill, whose father, Peter, founded the marine fuel business here 30 years ago, answers a fuel run call in his tanker boat, delivering a minimum of 100 gallons of fuel to a vessel, Diesel invariably goes with him.

The other day they delivered fuel across the bay to the Irvine Marina on the shore of the mainland. Hill failed to notice that Diesel had wandered off on a little exploratory tour of his own. It wasn’t until Hill got back to the peninsula that he noticed the dog’s absence. He returned to look for Diesel and there he was, waiting patiently for him on the cabin of the boat Hill had refueled.

Who can resist loving and admiring a smart, trusting dog like that!