Céline and her newfoundland participate in the surveillance of the beach

In an exercise organized in Vierville, a newfoundland joins a struggling veliplanker and brings him back to shore. Its owner, Céline Tonin, explains that Junkie also carried out real rescues, including that of an exhausted planker whose mast had broken on the Côte d'Azur. The newspaper presents Céline as the only woman in France combining the functions of professional firefighter and aquatic rescue dog handler.

Céline emphasizes that the animal always acts with a master lifeguard. It is a complementary means of rescue, like a board, a buoy or a canoe, and must never intervene alone. She mentions Pascal's dog, another lifeguard: on vacation in Corsica, the animal had rescued three tourists before dying of exhaustion, without protective harness, under the waves that broke near the shore.

Junkie remained attentive to the bathers. On a busy beach on the Côte d'Azur, his barking had thus drawn Céline's attention to a child drowning. The dog knew about thirty voice orders and her owner estimated that she could memorize about eighty instructions.

Welcomed by the SNSM, Céline and Junkie watched the beach of Vierville during the month of August alongside David and Nicolas, two other seasonal workers. The duo aroused the curiosity of the public and made it possible to raise awareness of the work of rescuers at sea. The article is signed Arnaud Wajdzik.

Reconstructed or uncertain passages:
- The source alternates "dog" and "bitch" for Junkie; the sex indicated in the narrative passages was not deduced beyond the text.

Archive image: https://vierville.cordelle.eu/PhDoc10/1998Aout14-SNSM.jpg