The public gets a close-up view of a Coast Guard boat during U.S. Coast Guard Station Marquette’s first-ever open house on Saturday. Many partnering agencies were represented at the event. (Journal photo by Christie Bleck)

MARQUETTE — For some Marquette residents, the only time they see the local Coast Guard is when they drive by its building along Lakeshore Boulevard.

On Saturday, though, the public had the opportunity to visit U.S. Coast Guard Station Marquette through its first-ever open house.

And not only did they see the grounds, they met with the local agencies that partner with the Coast Guard in various situations — and saw its mascot dogs, Thor and Loki.

2nd Class Petty Officer Terry Bailey said the dogs, which are Vizsla-pointer-chocolate Labrador mixes, are fully grown. But instead of having a home with the Coast Guard, their fate could have been much worse.

The Upper Peninsula Animal Welfare Shelter, he said, brought them from Missouri just in the nick of time.

UPAWS, fortunately, is a no-kill shelter.

“They were 24 hours away from being euthanized because nobody was picking them up,” Bailey said, “and then we decided as a crew that we wanted to adopt station puppies just as mascots. They’re not used for anything other than living here with us.”

The vote, he said, was to adopt a single chocolate Lab.

It didn’t turn out that way.

“We found out that they were brothers, and we could not bring it to us to separate the brothers because they had probably just been through a lot,” Bailey said. “We re-voted, and decided that we wanted to take in both puppies.”

The dogs also didn’t need much training apart from a few minor things, he said.

“They’re the best dogs ever — super well-behaved, and we’re just extremely excited to have them,” Bailey said.

The open house, though, was more than just letting visitors pet Thor and Loki.

They interacted with agencies that work with the Coast Guard as well as throughout the region.

Those agencies included the Michigan Department of Corrections, the Naval Sea Cadet Corps, Northern Michigan University Police Department, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Michigan State Police and its Forensic Lab Crime Scene Unit, the Marquette City Fire Department, the Marquette County Sheriff’s Office and the National Park Service.

Bailey said a Coast Guard goal had been to connect with the community a lot more.

“We wanted to just reach out, let people into the gates, figure out who we are, what we do as a personal crew, and two, to let the community know that the partnerships with all these organizations in the community is extremely strong,” Bailey said.

The Coast Guard might be best known for being the agency that rescues people in an emergency aquatic situation, but it also tries to keep those rescues from happening in the first place.

“We do a lot of community interactions, a lot of outreaches, to be proactive and prevent any sort of rescues,” E-3 Seaman Alyssa Hann said. “We want to make sure people are safe and aware, because with the new college students, people need to have respect for the water and know what its potential can be.”

Christie Bleck can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 250. Her email address is cbleck@miningjournal.net.