The pooch had run onto the frozen surface of the lake near the city's Lakeshore Drive early last month and a Reddit user posted the footage on Friday.
The video shows the final heart-stopping moments of a situation that could have ended in tragedy for the dog and its terrified owner who initially walked onto the fragile ice in an attempt to save her pet.
'This one just got a little too close,' Chicago Fire Department spokesman Larry Langford told the Chicago Tribune following the January 10 incident.
'She’s lucky she didn’t go through the ice.'
Rescuers arrived to the spot on the South Side to find the dog's unidentified owner on the ice as the dog struggled to stay alive in the 32F water.
'Its head was the only thing above water,’ Langford said. 'He or she was treading to hold on and the diver went in and got him or her.’
Rescuers quickly responded with two divers who ventured onto the ice and then into the water to pluck out the pet.
Thankfully, the animal was a tame one.
'When it’s a dog, it generally loses its fight pretty quick. This is a house dog. . .pet,’ he said.
The animal was quickly wrapped in a warm blanket before being returned to its weeping, but very thankful, owner.
But the fact that it's an animal at all may have people asking: why waste the tax dollars on such a rescue?
[Only a moron would say "It's just a dog."]
'If there’s a dog in the lake and we don’t respond, we could end up doing a recovery of people,’ Langford said. 'People tend to go into the water after their pets. It can have a tragic ending.’
(Daily Mail - Feb 2, 2014)
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