A dog owner has spoken of her shock after her beloved pet got stuck in murky, sandy, waters on Swansea beach - and had to be pulled to safety.
Emily Rose Shreeve, 24, was walking Ace, her just under one-year-old French Bulldog, along Swansea beach on Sunday, March 13, when Ace went into a pool of water. The water was still initially but then began to bubble and Ace quickly got "dragged under".
Fortunately, Emily and her partner were able to tug at Ace's harness and pull and lift him to safety - but she fears a smaller dog, or even a small child, could potentially drown in the sand.
Read more: Mystery of strange bubbling pool on Swansea beach is solved
Now, she's warning other dog owners to be vigilant when walking their animals near water, especially at Swansea beach where Ace found the strange bubble pool.
Recalling the worrying experience, Emily, from Manselton, said: "On Sunday, me and my partner were walking our dog Ace on the beach, we go there all the time, we probably walk him there every day as it's the only place he'll go! He loves his toys and he'd been playing and he also loves the water. He'd let go of his toy and had walked over to the water pool - and we thought this was fine as we know he likes the water.
"I had just looked away and my partner screamed, and I turned back around and he was stuck in the pool. The bottom half of his body was completely in the water. Luckily, he had his harness on, as my partner had to grab him and really swing him out. If he hadn't had his harness on, it would have been really difficult."
Ace never went far from Emily or her partner, she said, and she was relieved they weren't far from him when he got trapped in the bubble pool.
"He's like my child," she added. "It would have been terrible [if we hadn't been able to get him out].
"I know a lot of people walk their dogs on the beach, and sometimes they get distracted by their phone and things, but you've really got to be vigilant and not get distracted, you don't know what could happen! This was quite far up the beach [near the road/away from the sea]."
Emily's comments come after she wrote a short statement on social media urging other dog owners in Swansea to be vigilant.
Her statement, which has been shared more than 2,500 times in just three days, said: "Be extra careful with your furbabys/kids on Swansea beach. We let Ace in the water on each walk as he loves it, this was completely normal and still. So he went in and half of him just got dragged under - could of [sic] been a lot worse, safe to say my heart left my body! Lucky he’s big so we could grab his harness to pull him out but could of [sic] been a lot worse, only started bubbling after we pulled him out, obviously wouldn’t let him in anything like this - please be careful as this was quite far up on the beach."
What is the bubble pool?
We received reports from residents concerned about a bubble pool at Swansea beach last week, and contacted Natural Resources Wales to find out what it was.
In response to a video showing a "bubble pool," environment team leader for the Swansea team at Natural Resources Wales, Hamish Osborn said: "Your video shows the discharge from the end of a surface water outfall pipe that has become buried by sand on the beach. There are similar pipes all around the bay. Some of them end at the top of the foreshore and others extend down onto the sand and out across the beach. The sand levels tend to vary up and down with time as the sand shifts due to wave and wind action.
"Sometimes, when the sand level drops, the pipes are exposed. At other times the end of the pipe gets buried and when this happens the water finds a path out from the pipe and up to the surface as shown in the video. The pipes drain the urban areas of Swansea. Some of the pipes carry water from streams that have been culverted or covered over as the natural landscape was built on. Others convey the urban run-off from roads and other surfaces that drain into highway drains.
"The foreshore has a large number of outfalls because these are the default way that rainfall runoff is managed in a city built on steeply sloping ground with high rainfall levels and few natural streams left on the landscape. Many of the outfalls are owned and maintained by Swansea Council." For our full article on residents' noticing the bubble pool, go here.
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