So the dogs were more important than their daughter?

Poor child is now without both parent

That is really tragic, the bloke had four kids as well. It sounds like a completely stupid thing to do in retrospect, dogs aren't exactly poor swimmers so if they were in trouble it's very unlikely you are going to be able to do any better.

However, after his wife jumped in he had the choice of trying to save her or staying with his baby daughter and watching his wife drown