A family dog reportedly brought home an orphaned bear cub and potentially saved its life due to the cub being underweight and dehydrated when it was found.

The incident occurred in Washington County, Virginia, where the stunned owners of the dog in question immediately informed the Wildlife Center of their finding.

After the bear cub was transported to the Wildlife Center of Virginia for rehabilitation, the staff confirmed that the baby bear was dehydrated and weighed just over a pound.

Fortunately, the animal has been stabilized and provided with a bear foster mum that will now take care of the orphaned cub and his newly-gained bear sibling.

“It is fairly common for us to receive wild animals that have been picked up by pets, but it’s uncommon that they are uninjured,” the center’s outreach director, Amanda Nicholson, said in an interview with Bored Panda.

“Sadly, we see a significant number of injured wildlife from free-roaming housecats, and dogs will also often disturb nests of some ground-dwelling wildlife.”

As the director went on to say, they treat over 3,000 wild animals per year whereas they aim to rehabilitate them so that they can return to the wild where they belong.

“We also receive a number of healthy orphaned animals, and our rehabilitation staff will raise them until they are old enough to survive on their own back in the wild,” Nicholson added.

“In the case of this bear, we settled him into an incubator and calculated a ’round-the-clock feeding schedule with a specialized formula to meet his nutritional needs.”

While black bear cubs might look adorable, it is just a matter of time before they grow up into beasts that can weigh well over 500 pounds.

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