A construction worker is looking for the owners of a dog he rescued from a flooded lift shaft at a Walmer Estate construction site.
When David Bath found the dog when he came to work on Monday morning, it was up to its neck in water. He believes it spent most of the night trying desperately to escape.
He climbed into the shaft to get it out, and he noticed the dog had splinters in his mouth, possibly from biting into the shaft’s wooden
beams.
Later people living near the site told him they had heard a dog barking there at about 6pm on Sunday.
Mr Bath took the dog to the site office and dried it with a towel. The animal collapsed from exhaustion and didn’t even touch the food and water he put out for it.
There’s a fence around the construction site, but Mr Bath said the dog might have tunnelled under it.
The dog had no collar. Mr Bath took it to a vet near his home in Fish Hoek who identified it as a mixed-breed German shepherd dog, about five years old and neutered.
The dog is not micro-chipped, but Mr Bath doesn’t think its a stray.
He has taken the dog to work with him and during his breaks, walks it through the neighbourhood, hoping it will recognise its home or its owner.
Mr Bath also posted about the dog on the Woodstock Community Facebook page. He can be contacted at 082 573 3754. He already has a dog but said either he or his boss would adopt the German shepherd if no one came forward to claim it. The animal already follows him wherever he goes.
SPCA spokeswoman Tara McGovern said micro-chipping was the best way to find a missing pet: owners could track their animals using an app and vets could scan the chip for the owner’s contact information.