Missing 3-year-old found safe with her loyal dog by her side

There’s nothing like the bond between a kid and their dog. Dogs are loyal and instinctively protective of their youngest humans, ready to be by their side through thick and thin.

That’s what one recent story proves: when a missing toddler was finally found, police discovered that her little dog had been faithfully by her side throughout the whole ordeal.

On the afternoon of January 15, a three-year-old named Matilda wandered off from her home in Pilbara, Western Australia.

A missing child is always a terrifying situation—but this case was made even worse by the fact that the remote area had recently been hit with massive floods, posing a serious risk for the child’s safety.

Emergency services began a search, and helicopters scanned the areabut WA Police described the search area as “very challenging,” and were concerned the toddler may have been swept up in the flooding.

“The information we have is that the station was inundated with water and there was only about 600 metres of clear land that was the search area, everything else was inundated with water, which really raised our concerns that Matilda had washed away,” Pilbara police superintendent Kim Massam told ABC.

Luckily, after 24 hours lost, Matilda was spotted by helicopter about 2 miles away from her home.

Police concluded that Matilda made her way into one of the creeks where the flooding had subsided, but then was trapped by heavy rainfall.

It must’ve been a scary ordeal, being out there with no shelter… but luckily, Matilda wasn’t alone—she had her dog.

“Her faithful Jack Russell dog was by her side, still protecting her,” Western Australia Police Force wrote on Facebook.

Matilda, dirt still on her face, was reunited with her parents and everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

“It’s just an amazing feeling,” Massam told ABC. “I’ve had my team out there on the phone just elated, I could only imagine how excited the family was.”