Three-day search for dog ends in happiness

WITH all the festivities that went on in and around the Ndlambe area over the Christmas and New Year holidays, a nine-year-old dachshund bitch named Lucy was found and brought home at last after a three-and-a-halfday jaunt around Port Alfred.

Lucy was just one of many dogs that escaped from their properties over the festivities. Most ran away due to the illegal setting off of fireworks in the area, but in Lucy’s case it was Christmas crackers.

Talk of the Town’s Facebook page was inundated with messages from owners who were desperately seeking their animals.

Interest and concern over the plight of lost dogs in the area led to a Facebook group named ‘Doggone Port Alfred’ being formed a while ago by Jackie Nel, the wife of Ndlambe environmental law officer Willem Nel, to help owners find their pets.

Christmas Day ended up as a very trying time for the Axe family when Lucy escaped from their highly-secure home.

Kristi Jooste, the Axe’s daughter, along with a friend, stopped one of the MultiSecurity patrol officers and explained the problem of her missing dog. MultiSecurity then informed its patrol officers to keep an eye out for her.

Then followed three days of searching, where reports on Facebook stated that Lucy had been spotted in Main Street, running along Southwell Road, Pike Lane, Miles Street and at several other locations.

But it was MultiSecurity’s Zander van Rooyen, who arrived in Port Alfred from Johannesburg three years ago, who finally ended up as the real hero of the story.

Van Rooyen spotted Lucy at the top of Southwell Road and followed her circuitous route until she was finally cornered in the yard of a home in Heron Street at around 10pm on Wednesday December 28.

“I was driving the MultiSecurity vehicle at around 40km/h following the dog,” said Van Rooyen.

Debbie Axe, who thanked the SAPS officers and residents who helped to find Lucy, said: “I cannot adequately express my gratitude to MultiSecurity, who made it their business to find my dog.”

It took almost another hour to coax the dog into the Axe’s car, but she is now home, safe and sound, and Debbie Axe has decided to rename the dog Bolt, due to her bolting away on her three-and-a-half-day adventure.