Black lab saves smaller dog from drowning in Vancouver

Vancouver resident Joe Markovitch took his dog Bagels to Kitsilano Beach for a swim last Thursday.

The 12-year-old Border Collie picked up a stick and went into the water with it, something he'd done many times.

Unfortunately, the two-metre long stick was too big for him.

"Because he grabbed it at one end, the current wouldn't allow him to turn," Markovitch told Global News. "So he just kept swimming out to sea."

Bagels wouldn't let go of the stick.

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Nervous that his dog was being pulled farther and farther away by the current, Markovitch started swimming after Bagels when something bumped his shoulder.

"I feel a bump to my shoulder as a large black Lab passes me, on his way to Bagels where then he grabs the other end of the stick, still in Bagel's mouth and swims with stick and my dog in tow all the way back to shore," he wrote on Facebook.

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"They literally walked out of the water with the stick in their mouths," Markovitch told Global News. "I haven’t seen anything like it before. This other dog maybe even saved Bagels' life."

Markovitch posted a photo of the two dogs and the large stick together on the beach after the "unbelievable" ordeal on Facebook.