Shocked Italian firefighters did a double take when they went to rescue an exhausted dog and discovered it was a wolf.

Footage taken from the scene shows firefighters from the Verona fire brigade were called to the watercourse running through the Ponte Florio district of the Italian city of the local said there was a growling dog on the 25th of January, 2023.

But when they arrived, the relatively quickly that the exhausted animal was not a dog at all, but in fact a fully grown wolf.

The animals clearly exhausted and cold from being unable to get out of the water course, and had come to rest on some branches represent helped onto a concrete shoulder before then being lifted up and put into a box by the fireman.

The and was then taken to a local police station where experts were able to take over and ensure that it was fed and once it was seen that it had recovered, it was released back into the nearby Lessinian highlands where it is believed to have originally come from.