Sometimes things aren’t always what the seem. That was definitely the case when two Estonian men witnessed what they thought was a freezing “dog” underneath the Parnu River while working on the Sindi Dam. Swiftly breaking the frozen water to rescue the canine, the men created a little pathway, allowing the nearly-frozen canine to swim to the shore, slowly but surely.
Once the dog escaped the frozen lake, one of the two workers ran to their vehicle to obtain a towel to dry the critter off before they called their local animal protection agency.
“We had to carry him over the slope. He weighed a fair bit,” said Rando Kartsepp in an interview with Postimees, the Estonian newspaper.
And while it was very early in the morning, the men were lucky to be able to find an open clinic for the canine.
“He was calm, slept on my legs. When I wanted to stretch them, he raised his head for a moment,” Kartsepp recalls once more.
Interestingly, it wasn’t until they took the animal to the vet that the men realized that the creature they rescued wasn’t just any dog but a wolf! A hunter near the area was the one to inform them.
After hearing the news, the veterinarians quickly put the animal in a cage with a muzzle just in case his innate, feral behavior ignited as he healed. It turns out, the vets did the right thing.
“At first, he was so done in for he didn’t resist at all. We simply kept him in this room. 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,” Tarvo Markson shared.
Regardless of his wild upbringing, the vets wanted nothing more than to help the wolf regain good health. So, they phoned up a nearby zoo and refuge, asking if they would be willing to take in the injured wolf.
But before the refuge could take him in, the young, one-year-old wolf recovered in just a day in the hands of the local veterinarian. His speedy recovery surprised everyone as the vet mentioned that if it weren’t for the men that saved him, he would have quickly died of hypothermia. To recuperate that rapidly after being in a dire state of health is incredible!
After recovering, the wolf was given a GPS collar and released back to his natural environment.
“We are so happy for the outcome of the story, and wish to thank all the participants – especially these men who rescued the wolf and the doctors of the clinic who were not afraid to treat and nurture the wild animal,” the agency shared.
See the wolf’s dramatic recovery below!
