THUNDER BAY — Sean Bouttell knew he had to act quickly when he spotted a dog in trouble on the Neebing River.
He and two other people were walking their own dogs on North Vickers Street Friday when they heard a dog whining from the direction of the river.
"My girlfriend, my buddy and I always walk our dogs together. We had five dogs with us. We heard a dog kind of yelping as we were crossing the bridge.," Bouttell said.
He told TBnewswatch the trio looked down and saw a dog in the water, clinging to the edge of the ice.
"He was trying to get up. Me and my buddy ran down there. I crawled across the ice and pulled him up."
Bouttell said he and his companions were able to contact the dog's owner through a phone number tagged to its collar.
It turned out that its name is Moose.
"We got him to the shore. The owner was actually already looking for the dog. She was 30 seconds away. As soon as we got up the bank to the road, she was waiting there for us."
Bouttell said the grateful owner, Katie Williams, "was very excited and happy to get him back, and that he was doing well."
He said he didn't take the time to think about the danger he might be in by going onto the ice.
"It was just kind of 'Oh my God, there's a dog in the river. We've got to do whatever we can to get him out.' "
Moose is a 12-year-old Labrador Retriever.
