Pet dog saves girl, 3, lost in Australian bush

A THREE-YEAR-OLD girl who got lost in bushland in Australia was rescued after the family dog followed her, stayed by her side overnight and then helped searchers to find her.

The girl, Aurora, wandered off from her family’s remote rural home in Queensland at about 3pm on Friday.

She was followed into the bush by the family’s pet, Max, a 17-year-old partially deaf and blind cattle dog, which stayed beside her for 16 hours as the temperature dropped and rain fell. The pair apparently sheltered under a rock.

In the morning, about 100 emergency workers and local volunteers set off at first light to try to find Aurora.

She was discovered at about 7.30am after Leisa Marie Bennett, the girl’s grandmother, heard her crying faintly from the top of a mountain, about a mile from home. “When I heard her yell ‘Grammy’ I knew it was her,” Ms Bennett told ABC News. “I shot up the mountain... and when I got to the top, the dog came to me and led me straight to her. He never left her sight.”

Kelly Benston, Ms Bennett’s partner, wrote on Facebook that Aurora was found with a “few scratches from brush but wasn’t even scared”.

Following the rescue, Queensland’s police force named Max an honorary police dog.