A 15-year-old dog named Rocky is recovering at home after several hours out in the cold in Lake Orion.
Despite his family's attempts to find him, Rocky was somewhere out in the cold for 19 hours last Friday.
Everything changed when a neighbor, Ruel Ramos, heard barking. He could tell something was wrong.
"I called the police. I can't let the dog just die back there if he needs help," says Ramos.
So he called 911. That's when Oakland County Sheriff's deputy Faisal Khawaja showed up. He found little Rocky stuck in a creek.
"The dog was crying. Hypothermia was setting in. It was a cold day. The dog was drowning at that point. He was giving in," says Deputy Khawaja.
But Deputy Khawaja was not giving up. He pulled Rocky from the creek. He says Rocky was unconscious.
"I started rubbing his chest, giving him chest compressions. Then, I started to see signs of life," he says.
Ruel Ramos grabbed blankets and towels. They took Rocky in the house and called the number on his collar's tag. Soon, they spoke to a grateful family on the other end of the line.
"Thank you, thank you, thank you! You put our family back together," says Janet Lane.
Deputy Khawaja says he's grateful that Ruel Ramos decided to reach out for help. He says citizen involvement like this really helps them out.
"Just like anybody, I was just doing my job," says Deputy Khawaja.
The next day, Deputy Khawaja even stopped by the Lane house to check on Rocky.
"I just wanted to make sure he was okay," he says.
