A loyal dog remains motionless for four days at the spot where his owner fell into the ice and died while taking a shortcut across a frozen river.

A loyal dog has been seen standing still at the spot where she saw her owner on a bicycle fall through the ice of a frozen river.

Heartbreaking footage shows Belka stoically waiting for her owner, who tragically drowned after falling through the ice of a frozen river while trying to take a shortcut.

After four days of searching in the Ufa River in Russia, the body of its tragic drowned owner was found today downstream from where he was lost.

The deceased’s family took Belka to their home several times, but she repeatedly returned to the place where she saw him fall into the three-quarters of an inch thick ice in the Bashkiria region.

The owner had taken a shortcut across the frozen river, but the ice was not thick enough to hold him.

A man went to try to rescue his 59-year-old owner and got into trouble doing so.

The rapid river dragged him under the ice, but he was saved.

Tragically, the owner, whose name has not been identified, fell under the ice in water 23 feet deep.

While they recovered her bike, it took four days (including the use of a hovercraft) to find Bella’s owner.

Kirill Pervov, head of the rescue service in Bashkiria, said: “During the search, the rescue team used an air cushion boat with a hitching device to inspect the river bottom.

“The search work was complicated by difficult conditions: a strong current and an unstable ice crust,” he said.

He urged locals to “follow the rules of safe behavior and not endanger their lives.”

“Don’t go out on thin ice.”

Belka shares the name of one of the famous Soviet space dogs sent into orbit aboard the Sputnik 5 spacecraft in 1960.

But Russians are comparing the loyal pet to the famous Japanese Akita dog Hachikō, a pet that waited interminably for its master, Hidesaburō Ueno, a professor at the University of Tokyo, who had died.