You're a Golden Retriever, out for a walk with your Master and his other companion, a faithful Husky. It's late at night in the woods in winter. Your Master, a man in his mid-fifties, decides to take a "short cut" across a frozen lake. Suddenly, the ice buckles and collapses. All three of you are plunged into the freezing cold water. Your Master grabs desperate hold of the ice's frozen edge, with the water up to his neck. You and your canine pal are stuck in the water with him, paddling with your paws to keep afloat.
That doesn't work. You don't have the grip to climb up over the edge. You flail with exhaustion in the icy cold water, struggling with your last canine breath.
In rapid succession, the Husky follows suit...using the man's body as leverage to climb up safely onto the ice. Both of you pant with exhaustion on the frozen lake, your drenched fur shivering with cold. As you start to walk again slowly on the ice, suddenly you realize: the Man now needs your help.
Too little, too late. Your Master needs help immediately. Your efforts -- while noble -- result in the Man losing his grip and slowly drowning before help can arrive.
Your Master is clinging for dear life in the frozen water, his bleeding hands barely able to hang onto the ice's edge. As he gasps and kicks inside the dark water, you go into action.
With your teeth locked tightly on his collar and sleeve, you and your pal slowly draw him back onto the ice, pulling the Man up from the frozen edge. Gasping with gratitude and shivering with cold, your Master collapses between the both of you as the wind stirs across the frozen lake in the woods.
Soon the neighborhood is alerted by your cries, and in a matter of minutes an ambulance arrives. The Man is rushed to a hospital. Recovery is swift. Two days later all three of you are back, safe at home. Your Master has survived...and, on the following Sunday, you are rewarded for bravery!
