A tiny lapdog discovered it is inner wolf when it ended up lost in the Siberian wilderness surrounded by wolves and bears for a whole three days and still managed to survive.
Ponya, the Pomeranian Spitz, is one year old and its owners said they had given up hope of finding her, until, after three days and in desperation, they consulted a psychic, who gave them a location.
Not expecting anything to come of it, they once again headed out into the wilderness and to their amazement, this time they had discovered their pet.
She had survived in the region that includes a primal forest, filled with dangerous animals and at the time a freezing rain that had blanketed the Republic of Buryatia, located in the Russian Far East.
In an interview with Newsflash the owner of the tiny Pomeranian, named Alena, aged 29, said she never thought to see her dog again when she vanished.
The young woman said: “My husband and I work in the tourism industry. I organize hiking trips for tourists in local Russian resort of Mamaia.
“Every time we go anywhere, we take little Ponya with us. In the city, I usually have her on a leash when I am in Mamaia, she doesn’t usually need one. She usually stays by my side because she’s quite nervous. She never goes away.
“But last Sunday [16th July], as I was leaving the hotel, the guests suddenly started fighting right next to me, and poor Polena was in the middle of it all. She was terrified, and ran off, and that was that.”
She said that the hotel was right on the border next to a huge forest, and despite being chased, the little dog refused to stop and ran into the forest and vanished.
She said: “I kept hoping she would come back, I was checking around the hotel but I knew it was hopeless when I spoke to another man running a tourist group through the mountains using jeeps, and he said he had seen her miles away on a remote trail.”
She added: “I went where she was seen with my husband, we checked everywhere, we shouted her name but no luck. That night we went home and continued again the next day.”
She said they were heartened by the fact that they were getting constant sightings as the search spread on social media, but still with no confirmed sighting by themselves.
While following one lead, she said she had heard a roar and when she looked round, saw a mother bear and her cubs lumbering towards her and her husband.
They stood still and the mother bear who was suddenly uncertain had become nervous and then climbed a tree with her cubs allowing the couple to escape.
She said it reminded her that there was all sorts of dangerous animals around and she despaired of ever finding the dog again, a belief that hardened when torrential rain set in causing freezing conditions.
It was only when they got back to the hotel that somebody suggested using a psychic, and they followed the woman’s advice to a tree and felt foolish when there was no sign of the dog.
But on the way home they had spoken to the psychic advice to sit down and wait, which they have done, and suddenly heard the dog barking and saw her coming towards them in the undergrowth.
Alen said: “I think she grew up very quickly. But first it was like she didn’t remember her name recognise me, but then when she got nearer and snugly, she was my beloved little girl again.”
Online commentators noted that the lap dog had become a wolf even if it was only for a brief time.