Boy has miracle escape after stray dog keeps him warm for three days and nights in minus 10C

But Raul slipped in the snow and fell in too. A huge search involving 200 people for the missing boy failed to find him until more than 72 hours later road workers heard the exhausted barks of a dog from the pit.

Weak but conscious, Raul was pulled out with his saviour, the stray dog.

'I was coming back home from school and heard a strange noise,' said Raul, wrapped in blankets and re-united with his worried mother, but still shivering.

'It was coming from inside the uncovered hole on the side of the road. I looked inside and saw my favourite dog down there'.

The dog - who he sometimes played with in his village Bulgakovo - was howling, pleading to be rescued, said the boy from Bashkiria in the Urals.

'I came back home, had some food, changed into other clothes and went back to rescue the dog'.

But he slipped into the dark and cold shaft, falling three metres down, and was unable to climb out. 

'I wanted to save the dog and fell inside; I was calling but no-one heard me,' Raul said. 

The cold stone walls of the shaft muffled his screams.

Road engineer Maksim Belskiy said: 'We were on duty on the Ufa-Orenburg route when a radio report came about the missing boy. 

'We decided to check all the service shafts around the area. We went around them and heard a dog wailing. And there inside the well together with the dog was a boy. We called the police and ambulance immediately.'

Re-united with his mother, Raul said: 'I'm shivering a lot and my legs and arms and aching'.

A doctor who treated him said: 'We are in awe at how he managed to survive, sitting inside there for three days. He told us that all that time his dog and him were clutching to each other trying to warm each other up'.

The dog warmed the boy, preventing him getting hypothermia. At night temperatures sank to as low as minus 10C. 

The unnamed dog, a local stray, was rescued alive, too, though its current whereabouts were unclear. Hopefully the animal will be given proper medical treatment, a deserving home and regular meals. 

When the boy went missing, his mother apparently delayed calling the authorities fearing she would be accused of neglect and that her other children would be removed from her. 

However, a rescue operation soon began the with Russian Interior Ministry flashing details of the missing boy. 

'Mother of 7 years old Raul Kutliakhmetov has called for police and volunteers to help in searching for her son who went missing on March, 18, and has never been seen again,' said the report. 

'Raul has dark curly hair, blue eyes, thin lips, 130 cm tall, dressed in black coat, light blue jeans, fleece trousers underneath jeans, black hat and black leather shoes. He had 50 roubles in cash with him'.