A dog, who was saved from an ice floe on the Baltic Sea off Poland’s northern coast will be adopted by the crew of the research boat which rescued him.  

“The crew of the boat are real hard bitten sea veterans, but the dog managed to melt their hearts,” Ewa Baradziej-Krzyzankowska from the Sea Fisheries Institute in the coastal city of Gdynia told TVN.  

The dog was found stranded on an ice floe on the Baltic Sea off the coast of Gdynia on Monday. It was rescued by the crew of the Baltika research boat, who initially thought it was a seal. The dog was first seen floating along a river 100 kilometres inland but firemen were unable to rescue him so the brown mongrel had drifted 24 kilometres out to sea. When the scientists found him, the dog was very weak and kept falling into the icy waters. The crew warmed him, fed and taken to a veterinary for a checkup. They also tried to find the dog’s owners but to no avail.

The sea scientists decided to adopt the animal, which they had secretly hoped to do from the moment they saved the dog. “The dog will become a crew member. If he managed to survive on an ice floe for so long, it means he is a real sea wolf,” said Baradziej-Krzyzankowska.  

The dog managed to melt not only the hearts of the crew, but of thousands of people around the world. The boat crew received a lot of letters and phone calls from Poland and abroad from people who were willing to take care of the dog hero.

President Lech Kaczynski also sent a letter thanking the scientists for having rescued the animal. (mg)