GARDINER — Firefighters on Tuesday rescued a dog that fell through the ice on Cobbossee Stream, entering the icy water themselves to bring the animal to safety.

The dog and the firefighters who went for an unseasonable dip retrieving her were reported to be fine after the ordeal.

At around 10:20 a.m., a caller reported to the fire station a dog through the ice on the stream, off Karen Drive.

Firefighters and police responded and found a German shepherd stuck in the icy waters in an area known locally as the rips, where the ice is often thin because of moving water.

Fire Chief Rick Sieberg said firefighters Josh Seekins and Clayton Snelling donned their cold-water suits and ventured out onto the ice using a rescue sled tethered to shore with a rope.

The ice gave way when firefighters got close to the dog, so they entered the water themselves. One firefighter proceeded by swimming through the water and crawling along the breaking ice to get to the dog, which looked at them helplessly, Sieberg said.

The firefighters were able to grab the dog and get it back up onto the ice, where it lingered around its rescuers. The dog was finally lured to safety by people on the shore.

“They helped her back on the firm ice, then they had to kind of coax her a bit to shore; it almost seemed like she didn’t want to leave her rescuers,” Sieberg said. “They brought her inside and dried her off and warmed her up.”

The chief estimated they had the dog out of the water within five or six minutes of being alerted to the situation.

Sieberg said when an animal goes through the ice, public safety workers treat it as an emergency. He said when a pet needs to be rescued, its owners may take chances with their own lives to rescue it. So public safety workers respond both to rescue the animal and decrease the odds a person will also need to be rescued because they were trying to do it themselves. Such rescues also give rescue workers experience with that type of rescue and equipment.

Sieberg warned that despite the recent cold weather, ice on some bodies of water in the area, particularly those with moving water, are still not thick enough to be safe.