COASTGUARDS are urging people to leave rescue attempts to professionals after a woman dived into the water at Weymouth Pleasure Pier to save her dog.

The safety plea comes after coastguards were called to rescue a woman who had gone into the sea near the Weymouth Pleasure Pier.

The Wyke Coastguard team was paged at 1.38pm on Sunday after the woman’s partner alerted themcoastguards to the incident after he became concerned for her safety.

Coastguards were told that the couple’s dog had swam out into the bay and one of the owners was attempting to rescue it.

Upon making their way to the scene, a call came in to say that both the woman and dog had made their way safely from the water.

Mark Fagg, station officer for the Wyke Coastguard, has once again urged people to leave the rescue attempts to the professionals.

He said: “We would not advise going into the water to rescue anyone else, especially animals.

“We would instead ask people to call 999 and leave the rescue to the professionals, as people could put their own lives at risk.

“If you attempt to enter the water and save your animal, the chances are that the animal will come out safely and you will not.

“Personally I have lost count of the number of times people have gone into the water to rescue their animals and have never come out again.

“Don’t put yourself at risk and don’t put your life on the line.”

Weymouth Lifeboat was also paged at 1.37pm on Sunday to provide assistance directly to the woman, but was stood down almost immediately.

Spokesman for the RNLI Weymouth Lifeboat, Ken Francis, said: “We recommend, with our Respect the Water campaign, that nobody enters the water unnecessarily or puts their lives at risk to rescue other people or animals.

“Please leave this to those who are trained to do so if at all possible.”

The Respect the Water drowning prevention campaign was launched by the RNLI in July this year and revealed that 38 people lost their lives in the waters off Dorset’s coast in the past five years.

People have died from drowning whilst doing activities such as coasteering, fishing and swimming, the RNLI said.

Slips and falls were the cause of the largest percentage of deaths at 23 per cent, with swimming and general leisure use accounting for 22 per cent, diving at 12 per cent and sailing at eight per cent.