A puppy named “Dory” is recovering well after being rescued from a freezing lake in Illinois over the weekend and now the rescuer wants to adopt her.
According to media reports, middle school science teacher Bryant Fritz was fishing at a lake in Champaign, Illinois when he saw a small black and white puppy stuck in a barrel underwater.
Fritz then jumped into the water himself to save her. “It was around 3pm. when I saw the dog in the lake,” Fritz said again. “Part of the barrel is sticking out of the water. The puppy’s head is still above the water, but the rest of its body is already submerged.”
“I was thinking of calling someone but I don’t think she has another 5 or 10 minutes, I just don’t know.”
According to the UI Veterinary Teaching Hospital Facebook page, Dory was treated at the hospital for hypothermia and other injuries that “do not appear to be related to being in the lake”. It takes two or three hours of warming up for the puppy to return to its normal temperature level.
On Monday, the hospital announced that she was well enough to be released to Champaign County Animal Control. She will stay there while police investigate who abandoned her in the lake, according to the report. “She’s excited, she’s happy, she’s eating, she’s wagging her tail, licking her face, snacking,” hospital worker Dr Meghan Fick told. “The puppy is so resilient that he doesn’t know that people have done this to him and he just wants to be with everyone. She wants to sit on your lap, lick your hands and snack. She’s ready to move on and doesn’t have any bad feelings.”
Now that Dory is feeling better, Fritz, who recently lost his dog, a pit bull, says he wants to adopt her. “As I filled out the paperwork while taking her to the hospital, I realized I wanted this dog to be a part of my life,” he said.
“We were first on the list,” he added.