“We Thought It Was a Dog”—Workers Rescue Animal from Frozen Lake, Only to Discover It’s a Wolf at the Vet

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Construction workers in Estonia risked their lives to rescue a frozen dog from Pärnu river — only to learn it’s a wolf.

On Wednesday, Robin Sillamäe, Rando Kartsepp and Erki Väli were doing dredging work on the Sindi dam when they spotted, what they thought was a nearly frozen dog, trapped in the icy body of water, Estonian Union for the Protection of Animals revealed in a post shared on Facebook.

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The Estonian Union for the Protection of Animals explained that the workers noticed the animal was extremely calm and docile — assumably why they believed it was a dog.

“He was calm, slept on my legs. when I wanted to stretch them, he raised his head for a moment,” Kartsepp told Estonian newspaper Postimees.

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While the doctors were skeptical in believing the “dog” was just a domestic canine, it took a local hunter to reveal it was actually a wolf.

The hunter, whose identity has not been revealed, was also able to determine that the wolf was only 1 year old.

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Fearing that he may return to his wild nature following treatment, the veterinarians placed the wolf in a cage while he recovered.

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“At first he was so done in for, he didn’t resist at all,” veterinarian Tarvo Markson told the Postimees. “But once he started to get an idea of the situation, I felt things might quickly take a turn for the dangerous. We got him into a cage.”

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Within a day, the wolf regained it’s strength and was released back into the wild. In addition, the wolf was sent out in a GPS collar by researchers from the national environment agency, BBC News reported.

“We thank the heart of the young men who went to help this wild animal,” EUPA said.