Dog's Best Friend Duck In Search Of A Name

UPDATE: What should the family name their duck? VOTE NOW: Freedom or Lucky?

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) - You've heard of dog's best friend, but probably never like this.

The Bentsen family in Oceanside, N.Y., has an animal friendship in their family like no other: Brody the dog and his best friend, a duck, reports CBS2's Mary Calvi.

"She likes to go for a little swim in the canal. And she'll just like come down here and jump off. But when Brody sees that, he gets a little nervous because she's leaving," said Ashley Bentsen. "So he'll come down here and he'll squat down and wait for her and then she'll come and jump up and she just follows him. It's adorable."

Wherever the duck goes, Brody isn't far behind. The same for the duck.

The Bentsen family has been watching this relationship grow from its somewhat harried beginning in their Oceanside backyard, where 12-year-old Tommy Bentsen spotted a nest with eight duck eggs and no mother duck.

"Mom never came back," said Cindy Bentsen.

"The eggs were also cold, like something wasn't sitting on it," added Tommy Bentsen.

The family followed the guidelines from wildlife experts and in 28 days, the ducks hatched back in May.

In the end, though, only one duckling survived, and that's where their dog came in.

"Maybe he realized something was wrong," said Cindy. "He's a good-natured dog. Now he's taken on this mama duck persona."

As for getting released out into the wild, the family tried, but the fowl wasn't having it.

"The other ducks aren't too accepting. I guess because she wasn't raised with the. She'll sometimes try and get in with them," said Cindy. "They don't really let her in."

So she keeps coming back.

"We weren't expecting it to work out so well, but it did," said Ashley.

Certainly not your ordinary duck tale, but then again this is no ordinary duck, and no ordinary dog.