Viral Trends

Dog rescues fawn from lake in viral video, pictures

A dog and a fawn built a dear friendship when the canine appeared to help his inter-species pal out of a lake, a viral Facebook post shows.

The dog’s owners found him swimming out in the middle of the lake behind their Virginia home on June 2, “herding” a fawn back to shoreline, Ralph Dorn said in a post shared more than 256,000 times.

“I couldn’t find Harley this evening until I looked out on the lake,” Dorn said in the post, which is accompanied by pictures and short video clips.

“Not sure how the fawn got out there but Harley obviously didn’t ask why, he just jumped into action.”

The photos show the dog escorting the fawn through deeper waters, then tending to it on the shore bed. Once back on dry land, Harley is seen licking the fawn and not wanting to leave its side as its owner calls it and briefly tries to guide it away.

Dorn told People.com he personally helped the baby deer onto the grass from the water before the dog, a 6-year-old Goldendoodle breed, jumped to the fawn’s side again.

The deer went off with its mother, People said, but the fawn returned to visit Harley the next morning, the Facebook post said.

A dog and a fawn built a dear friendship when the canine appeared to help his inter-species pal out of a lake, a viral Facebook post shows.
A dog and a fawn built a dear friendship when the canine appeared to help his inter-species pal out of a lake, a viral Facebook post shows. Facebook

“This morning Harley got restless running from window to window,” Dorn wrote. “I opened the front door and we could hear the fawn bleating.”

“Harley ran into the tree line and found the fawn,” it went on.

“The little one stopped bleating, tail wagging, they touched noses sniffed each other and Harley came calmly back to the house with me.”

Pat Dorn, Ralph Dorn’s wife, told People the couple were taken aback by the reaction to the viral post.

“We were just amazed,” Pat Dorn reportedly said. “We had no idea of the reaction.”