Dog rescued from icy Estonia river turns out to be wolf

A crew working on a dam on the Estonia River rescued what they thought was a dog that had fallen into the icy water, only to learn once they got to an animal clinic it was a wolf.

The men saw the animal trying to swim in the icy water Thursday morning, cleared a path through the ice and pulled it from the water, the Estonian newspaper, Postimees, reported.

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The animal was swaddled in towels, loaded into a vehicle and taken to an animal clinic.

"He was calm, slept on my legs. When I wanted to stretch them, he raised his head for a moment," one of the workers, Rando Kartsepp, told the Postimees.

Veterinarians were able to treat the animal for hypothermia and shock but it took a hunter to tell everyone that what they thought was a dog, was a 1-year-old wolf.

"At first, he was so done in, for he didn't resist at all. We simply kept him in this room," 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."

The wolf recovered, was outfitted with a tracking collar and released back into the wild.

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