Rocky's been a fictional hero for decades, but in Edmonton, Alberta, today there's a hero named Rocky who is definitely real -- only he's 8 years old and has four legs. 

This Rocky, a Labrador retriever-husky mix, is being hailed for pulling a 9-year-old girl from an icy river on Easter Sunday. His owner, Adam Shaw, 27, is getting similar praise. 

"If that man and dog weren't there -- I just try not to think of it," Miranda Wagner, the mother of Samara, 9, and her 10-year-old sister, Krymzen, said in an interview with CNN affiliate CTV. 

"I just want to give him a big hug and tell him he's my hero. If he wasn't there I wouldn't have my girls," Wagner said. "Doctors said two more minutes and Samara would have been gone." 

Rocky and Shaw's heroics played out on the icy North Saskatchewan River in Edmonton on Sunday afternoon. The girls were tobogganing in a riverside park when they ended up on ice extending from the riverbank, their father, Corey Sunshine, told CNN affiliate CBC. 

"From what I was told was, one of the toboggans came off the snowbank and onto the ice and they were trying to come back and the ice broke," he said. 

Shaw said he was walking on a bridge over the river when he heard screams. Looking down on the river he saw one girl in the icy water and her sister trying to pull her out. 

By the time he and Rocky sprinted down to the river, both girls were in the water. 
Was the dog alone?
This Rocky, a Labrador retriever-husky mix, is being hailed for pulling a 9-year-old girl from an icy river on Easter Sunday. His owner, Adam Shaw, 27, is getting similar praise. 