The owner of the Barrhead News Pet Idol winner 2014 told the remarkable story after winning £300 in our close run competition.

Pauline Simm, 35, told how she lost track of her black lab Penny, at the time just a year old, while walking along the banks of a frozen river Spay in Fife.

However when she heard yelping coming from the river, Pauline discovered Penny trapped in the icy water between the ice flows, and leapt into action.

The Glennifer Drive resident, who can’t even swim, lowered herself down an almost vertical embankment into the icy waters where she dragged her dog to safety and on to the bank.

However Pauline was trapped by the steep banks and fast flowing waters, and her mobile phone had been completely submerged.

Speaking to the Barrhead News this week, Pauline said: “I could hear her yelping and I looked down this bank and I could just see her struggling half in and half out of the river which was almost completely frozen over.

“I lay down so I could lower myself down the steep bank and got in, even though I couldn’t swim but I really wasn’t thinking about that at the time.

“I got her out and pushed her up the bank but it was too steep for me to pull myself out.

“Luckily I had my phone, and even though it had been submerged in the water it still worked, and I managed to phone 999.” Pauline was left stranded on the banks of Scotland’s second largest and fastest flowing river, while her dedicated dog Penny barked continually, and attempted to drag branches towards her.

And while the water was only waist deep the banks were so steep and the water so cold that Pauline lost all feeling in her legs, and was unable to move them.

Clinging on to one of the branches to stop herself drifting away, Pauline could do nothing but wait until emergency rescue services arrived, while she lost feeling in the lower half of her body due to the cold.

She said: “I couldn’t feel anything below my waist, it was very cold at first but after a while I couldn’t feel anything, and I remember just lying my head against the bank while holding on to the branch.

“Penny kept barking the whole time, and that’s when I could hear people coming.” Police, fire and ambulance services had been scrambled to search the banks of the river, in the grounds of the world famous Baxters factory, and eventually she was pulled from the rover, cold but safe.

She said: “I would do it all again for my Penny, she really is part of the family and she is such a wonderful and beautiful dog.

“She’s well trained, loving, and absolutely adores children.

“She is so patient with everyone and she will always be there for you in a way that people just can’t be, her love is unconditional.” In fact, Penny has been so patient with Pauline’s autistic 5-year-old niece that Pauline’s sister was inspired to get a dog of her own, despite having a long standing dislike of man’s best friend.

“She’s very much my baby and the baby of the family really.” Pauline also has a child on the way and lives with her mother and father, and is over the moon about winning the Barrhead News Pet Idol 2014 competition.

She said: “It’s lovely to win and to know that everyone else thinks she is as beautiful as I do.

“I think about £300 worth of tennis balls is in order.”