Family members last saw her playing with a small black dog named Czarue in the backyard, and it appears the pair wandered into a nearby forest. Rescuers stumbled across Julia the next morning. She was wet from lying in a moist marsh, clinging to Czarue and crying for her mother, The Daily Mail reported.
Though she did suffer some frostbite, firefighter Grzegorz Szymanski told BBC News the dog kept Julia warm enough to live.
"This dog is the most important part of this story," he told Reuters. "He is a hero. It is thanks to this dog that the girl survived the night."
