Edmonton rescue crews spent several hours Monday morning working to rescue a dog after it got stuck on ice in a man-made lake in the city’s northeast.

Crews were first called to Lake Hollick-Kenyon, a man-made storm water lake located in the area of 158 Avenue and 59 Street, in the Hollick-Kenyon neighbourhood at about 6:30 a.m. Monday.

They spent the next several hours trying to coax a large dog off of the ice on the lake – however, the dog managed to avoid a number of different rescue attempts.

Crews tried to grab the dog, tried plying the dog to eat meatballs laced with sedatives to get the pooch to fall asleep, and finally tried using a snow fence to confine the dog to one area on the ice.

While the pet managed to evade rescue attempts, and appeared disinterested in the meatballs, after about five and a half hours, the dog approached crew members, who corralled him using a snow fence and finally pulled him from the ice.

“The dog was obviously tired by the time we got him off,” Firefighter Dave Kerr told CTV News. “He’s been out here most of the morning so eventually we corralled him and I think he was just as happy to get off the ice, as we were happy to get him off.”

Officials told CTV News conditions on the ice were deteriorating significantly throughout the rescue – and there were reports a second dog had gone through the ice, but after a search, officials said they could not find evidence to confirm that.

Officials said crews would turn their attention to finding the dog’s owner.

With files from Sarah Richter