A hero police officer in Monmouth County put his water and ice rescue training to the test when he helped save the life of a dog. The rescue was all caught on camera.

“I put on that equipment crawled out on the ice, got the dog,” said Hazlet Township Police Officer Doug Centrone.

That dog – a purebred border collie named Taff – was just doing her job, chasing geese away from the pond at Veteran’s Park in Hazlet, when a lone goose caught her eye and she took off on the ice, ending up in the frigid water.

“Just used some of the equipment we have in the patrol vehicles and some of the specialized equipment I have for the Maritime Emergency Response Team,” he said.

Centrone, a trained water and ice rescuer with the Monmouth County Sheriff’s Maritime Emergency Response Team, arrived in just minutes.

“You could see Taffy floating in the middle of the lake there, swimming away. Glad she was still afloat when we arrived and from there worked with the other officers get her back to land,” said Officer Centrone.

“Part of the training we do is getting behind them, assisting whether it’s a person or an animal but getting them assisted on to the ice itself.”

Taff is just one of the trained border collies with Geese Chasing LLC, a company that specializes in the humane removal of the birds. The company’s founder Deborah Young shared photos of Taff looking happy and warm, resting at her handler’s home hours after she was pulled to safety. Young says that in 25 years, nothing like this has ever happened before.

After a warm shower, Centrone returned to work, unphased by his heroic actions.

“Just glad it was a happy outcome,” he said.