It was by chance that Ken Rhoads glanced out his window Thursday morning and noticed a ripple in the water near the end of his dock on Lagoon Pond. With the pond iced over in sub-freezing temperatures, the movement caught his eye.

“I thought maybe it was a duck or something,” he said, “I looked closer and I realized there was a dog in the water.”

Mr. Rhoads’s quick glance — and quick action — would save the dog’s life.

Thursday morning began as typical one for dog owner Maddy Stowell, who lives next door to Mr. Rhoads on Lagoon Pond. She was getting the family’s two dogs loaded into the car for a routine trip to the state forest when Remingtion, her six-year old Bernese Mountain dog, escaped and disappeared.

“We turned around to grab my other dog and looked back like 30 seconds later, and Remi was gone,” Ms. Stowell said. “My first priority was to go up and start looking by the road, because I was in that moment not even thinking about the lagoon and was just concerned about cars.”

Meanwhile, Remi had run out behind the house and onto the iced-over pond — a move uncharacteristic of him, said Ms. Stowell. When he got out far enough, the ice couldn’t support his weight and he fell in.

It’s unclear how long Remi had been in the water by the time Mr. Rhoads noticed him from the window. He and his wife, Becky Rhoads, quickly ran to the dock and tried to pull Remi in from the shore with a scalloping net. But Remi, who is about 150 pounds, needed more help than that.

“I couldn’t get the dog’s hind legs lifted to help him get up over the ice,” Mr. Rhoads said. “All this time, the dog is struggling.”

Mr. Rhoads ran to the garage, grabbed his waders and a scalloping net, and walked into the pond, breaking apart the ice with his hands as he went. A man witnessing the incident from the shore called 911.

“It was just brutal,” Mr. Rhoads said of the frigid water.

Once he had cleared a path to the shore, Mr. Rhoads extended the scalloping net to Remi, who knew enough to bite onto the net’s metal rim so Mr. Rhoads could drag him to land.

Between the physical exertion and the cold water, Remi was exhausted.

“By the time we got to the shore, the dog just collapsed,” Mr. Rhoads said.

Soon after, Tisbury animal control officer Heather Maciel arrived on the scene. She estimated that Remi could have been in the water for anywhere from 20 to 45 minutes.

“When I arrived there, he was shivering, his teeth were chattering and he was lethargic,” she said. “We took his temperature and it was 96 degrees, which is mild to [moderate] hypothermia.”

Upon the advice of Remi’s vet, Dr. Michelle Jasny, Ms. Stowell and Ms. Maciel warmed up a blanket in the dryer and started the process of slowly bringing the dog’s temperature up. Mr. Rhoads said he brought Remi some treats from his house.

It wasn’t long before Remi started showing signs of improvement.

“About an hour later, he stopped completely shivering and chattering, and his gums were completely pink, which just means that his body temperature had returned back to normal,” Ms. Maciel said. “He was kind of laying on me, and he lifted one of his legs. He was trying to ask me to rub his belly. We really knew that he was good.”

When Ms. Stowell spoke to the Gazette on Sunday, she said Remi had made a full recovery.

“[Remi] is doing awesome,” she said. “It’s almost like it didn’t happen.”

Mr. Rhoads stressed that the Stowells are responsible dog owners and that accidents like this can happen to anyone.

“When [dogs] are out on the ice, they don’t know that there’s water underneath,” he said. “It’s really easy to have a catastrophe in this kind of weather.”

Ms. Maciel said if a pet falls through the ice, the first step is to call 911. To her, the best way owners can protect their animals in cold temperatures is by keeping them leashed.

“If they run off in the woods... the worst-case scenario is going through the ice,” she said.

Ms. Stowell is glad that her family’s worst-case scenario had a happy ending.

“We’re just really lucky and very grateful for Ken and Heather and everyone who helped out,” she said.

Mr. Rhoads, too, is grateful that he looked out his window that day and that Remi pulled through.

“This is a miracle dog, man,” Mr. Rhoads said.