Fellow pooches to rescue
A YELP from afar signalling for help led rescue dogs Scruffy and Ollie to discover fellow canine Louie, who had been missing for three days.
Earlier this month dog owners Wendy Beresford-Maning and Delma Swan were on their daily commute around the Pearl Retirement Resort facility, when their pooches led them to the moans coming from a nearby creek.
“We got to the back boundary of Pearl where the dogs are usually ready to head for home. Suddenly they stopped and turned back towards the fence, then Delma heard the dog moan. We knew we couldn’t leave it there, we had to do something,” Ms Beresford Maning said.
“She didn’t look like she had the energy to get out of the predicament.”
After trying unsuccessfully to usher famished Louie through a gate in the creek fence, the ladies rallied the help of husband Russ Swan and neighbour John Parker.
Once Louie had navigated his way through the storm debris and climbed the steep creek bank, the rescue team managed to coax her through a set of gates into the Pearl complex.
Mr Swan decided to fetch a wheelbarrow and cart the fatigued dog to safety.
“She looked like a very lovely and well-loved dog, but her lower legs were bare of fur and she looked like she’d been scratched up a bit,” Ms Beresford-Maning said.
In the meantime, the ladies found the phone number of owner Chantelle Hopkins on her collar and made the call home to say she was safe.
“After no sign of Louie at the pound or any response from our Facebook posts, we feared the worst,” Ms Hopkins said.
Once contacted, she was down at the Pearl in a matter of minutes for the joyous reunion.