Once in a while a great story crosses my desk and this is one of them. In reality, as those of you who know me must admit, I am not much of a people lover. I am a cynic. This story helps restore my faith in the sad state of affairs known as humanity. Enjoy this read from the Chicago Tribune:

Shannon Nickerson worried as she watched two dogs playing on the ice along the Howard Beach shoreline.

They were about 100 feet from shore, and Nickerson feared they could break through the ice and into frigid Lake Michigan any second. Sure enough, the brown pit bull mix and black-and-white Australian shepherd mix were heading back to the beach when they started barking.

“You could hear the dogs crying and the ice cracking underneath them,” said Nickerson, 31, who is being called a hero for coming to the dogs’ rescue Tuesday morning.

Nickerson, watching from outside a friend’s apartment, was quickly joined by two dog-owning neighbors, Reva Meadows and Robin Vice who had also spotted the animals in peril.

The women raced over the ice with Nickerson’s 4-year-old labrador retriever Ghost. Nickerson said she hoped to use Ghost to coax the other dogs to shore. But before they could get close, the two dogs were in the water.

The black-and-white dog managed to pull himself quickly out of the water and scamper to shore. “The brown one just went straight through the ice,” Nickerson said.

Nickerson quickly laid down, inching up to the pit bull as Meadows and her dog followed. Soon, Ghost was also in the water.

“The [pit bull] was just swimming out; she’s swimming in circles,” Nickerson said. “There was a turning point. It was the realization that somebody was going to have to go in to get the dog out.”

Being the closest to the dogs, Nickerson took off her coat and scarf and tossed her cell phone to Meadows.

She plunged chest-high into the water and first pulled Ghost out of the water and handed her to Meadows.

As she turned back to the pit bull, she realized for the first time what she had done: she was mostly submerged in near-freezing water on a day when the wind chills were dipping below zero. “It was an unreal feeling of being entirely enclosed [by ice] and not having anything to grip on,” she said.

She said she slogged about five feet through the water before she could get to the pit bull, only its head showing above the icy lake. When Nickerson reached the dog, she realized she was just in time.

“She wasn’t moving,” Nickerson said. “She had given up the fight.”

Nickerson managed to toss the pit bull to Meadows, who was up to her knees in the water. The dog seemed to go limp in her arms, both women said.

When she got back to her friend’s home, Nickerson said she took a cold shower along with her dog. She has a bad cough but is otherwise fine.

Meadows, who called Nickerson “the real hero,” kept the dogs in a storage area in her home overnight. The pit bull’s feet were cut up from the ice.

“God bless her. She is a hero,” Meadows said of Nickerson. “There’s no way these dogs would be here without her.”

Meadows said she watched the dogs all night long and realized the two had a special bond and were huddled up together throughout the night. She said the shepherd even let the pit bull eat first.

Meadows and Vice blanketed the area with flyers and sent e-mail messages to neighbors, who quickly offered assistance. They heard the owner abandoned the dogs earlier in the day on the beach.

Someone suggested they bring the animals to the Bark Bark Club, a nearby animal care facility that is now caring for the dogs.

Patti Colandrea, owner of the Bark Bark Club, said the business has sent e-mail messages to its clients about the dogs and has been overwhelmed by people wanting to donate money to feed and help care for them.

She said she is paying to have a vet give them their shots and spay and neuter the dogs. At that point, she said they will be ready for adoption.

She believes the dogs are under 2 years old. The Aussie mix has been named Howard after Howard Beach and the pit bull has been named Honey because of her color. She said the dogs are very people-friendly and are friendly with other dogs.

“We’re really trying to keep them together because they are really a pair,” said Colandrea. “They are really sweet dogs.”