A dog that went missing in Edmonton on Sunday is expected to survive despite being found 24 hours later on the North Saskatchewan River with its tail frozen to the ice.

The year-and-a-half-old dog named Roscoe was rescued by Edmonton fire crews on Monday afternoon and taken to the Edmonton Emergency Veterinarian Clinic.

“It's absolutely a miracle,” owner Dave Baird said.

“And Roscoe is by far, he's the toughest dog I know. He's unbelievable. If it would have been any other dog they never would have survived it.”

Roscoe went missing from the family’s property on Edmonton’s eastern border with Strathcona County on Sunday. When he didn’t come back on Monday, the family started looking for him.


The family’s other dog led Baird’s 13-year-old daughter Mikaela down to the edge of the river. That’s where she saw Roscoe out on the ice.

“I saw him and I just started crying right away,” she said. “And I called Dad. I said 'Dad, oh my gosh, he's on the ice.'"

A full contingent of firefighters was sent after a neighbour made it sound as though Mikaela was on the river.


However, the crew worked quickly to save Roscoe, eventually pulling him to safety on an inflatable raft.

The scared and bewildered dog was then rolled onto a blanket, carried onto a fire truck and driven to an emergency veterinarian clinic downtown.


"His lower extremities were frozen into the river, we suspect he was in the water probably 24 hours," Baird said. "He had a block of ice on his tail the size of a gas can."

Roscoe’s prognosis is good. He was moving his head and trying to get up when Dave Baird visited him at the clinic.


Roscoe will spend the night at the clinic because he is too exhausted to go home.

Baird is grateful to everyone who helped in the rescue.

"There are no words, just thank you," he said. "That's all we can say ... thank you to everybody involved."
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