You might say religion saved this dog’s life.

A Sikh man recently used his turban as leverage to reach the dog as it was struggling to stay afloat in an irrigation canal in India’s Punjab region.

Sarwan Singh, 28, told The Independent he was driving past the canal when he noticed a crowd of onlookers. He then saw the dog drowning and dropped everything — including his sacred headdress — to help.

Not able to swim, he gave one end of his turban to people on the banks of the canal and used the cloth as a rope to lower himself closer to the water.

He used another piece of material to wrap around the dog and pull it to safety.

Singh told The Independent that people were shocked when he took off his turban — normally only removed indoors — and thought he was disrespecting his faith.

“What was important at that point was to save the animal’s life,” he said.