Written by Nicola Vernon of Greyton Animal Farm Sanctuary
Professional photography by John Haigh
There, on the bridge over the Riviersonderend, sat a very bedraggled black-and-tan Collie with an exhausted, desperate expression. It was the 15th of May 2022 and I was driving from my farm just outside Greyton to collect the team who care for the animals at my farm animal sanctuary. I stopped the car and walked slowly towards the dog but this caused her to take fright (at this point, I could see she was a girl, quite young and very thin).
Too scared for help
I purchased some dog biscuits and spread them out by the bridge on my way back. I could see her hiding in the bushes. About an hour later, with fresh food from the sanctuary, I returned and could see the biscuits had gone. The dog was just off the road but skulked quickly away as I walked towards her.
No matter how gently I spoke, or how cautiously I approached her, she was just too scared to let me help.
The next day I returned with more food and observed her from a distance. Every time a bakkie drove past she leapt up, stared into the car, ran alongside, then dropped back. I could see that this poor dog had clearly been abandoned and was looking for her owners in every car that passed, convinced they were coming back for her…
For the next seven days, as more people joined in and started to help, we kept up a constant flow of food and observation. We established a roster and just kept trying. Sometimes she’d take off into the woodland and we worried that we’d chased her away, but she always returned to the same spot on the bridge. Night times were the worst. It was winter and very cold. None of us could sleep, thinking about her out there, alone and cold.
They made a plan…
One of the people helping was Jenni Trethowen, who set up the charity Baboon Matters. We had a serious chat. Surely the “Baboon Lady” and the “Pig Lady”, who’d rescued larger, more aggressive and wilder creatures, could capture this one little dog. We made a plan to go all out the next day and not give up.
Knowing we’d never catch her without traps or sedation, we arranged to try sedation first and then, if that failed, to drive through to Cape Town to borrow a trap from an animal welfare there. So on the 20th of May, Jenni and her son, Nick, joined me at the site with sedative and detailed instructions from the vet.
For hours we followed the dog around an area of about 1km radius. We set down food containing incremental amounts of sedation so that we didn’t overdose her. After the third dose we could see she was slowing down. We managed to get within 10 metres of her as she walked from the bridge towards the village, past the rugby field.
Nabbed by rugby tackle
As luck and the fates would have it, a rugby player was attending to the field and we called him to come over quietly. The dog was just ahead of us and he was well positioned to the right front of her. She was watching us so didn’t notice the new person creeping up on her. Suddenly, she saw him and jumped forward to flee. With a tackle that would have had a passing Springbok scout sign him up in a second, he grabbed her and we managed to run up, get a lead around her neck, and secure her.
We put her on my back seat and just gave her time to decompress a little, speaking softly and giving gentle strokes. As we caressed her and gave her love, the look in her eyes softened, a tiny spark of hope appeared, and I realised that this little girl was going to be OK.
A chance meeting changed her world
We’d arranged with the vet, if we were successful, to take her through to their surgery in Caledon and have her sterilised immediately while she was still sedated. They topped up the anaesthetic until she was fully unconscious, performed the operation and gave her a thorough health check. She stayed with the vet that night so that they could monitor her.
The next morning, I received a call that the dog was awake and well, so I went to collect her and brought her back to the village. I thought I’d stop by the Greyton branch of the clinic where they had some very expensive, upmarket dog pellets and tins of Recovery. I walked out and bumped straight into Brett Franklin, who’s probably one of the most devoted dog lovers in the village.
I mentioned the rescue to him and he told me that he absolutely wouldn’t be able to take her because he already has dogs and there’s no room and... then he saw her. So, of course, “foster” was mentioned and “short while” and “just for now”, “until she’s fully recovered”, and so on. But I know true love when I see it, and I would have laid money on this turning out to be a big foster fail.
A bright future ahead
So Carla, as I’d now called her, went straight from the bridge to the lap of luxury. She stayed with Brett’s wife, Rene, who slept with her in their guest cottage for a few nights so as not to overstimulate her. The dogs were introduced one by one, then the cats, and, within a few days, Carla had chosen another Collie-type dog to bond with, Patrice.
As the photos show, Carla is now a fully integrated member of the Franklin household. She sleeps on the sofa by day and on the bed at night with her new parents and her doggy pals, Patrice always by her side. On the 8th of June, Brett and Rene finally admitted that Carla was not a foster but their new doggy daughter.
Recently, Carla and Patrice were taken to Country Paws, a pet grooming parlour, for a summer wash and trim. Carla surprised everybody by immersing herself totally in the experience, loving the attention, the warm water, the suds, the trim, the drying off. Patrice was by her side the whole time, the two dogs luxuriating in all the pampering.
Carla has a wonderful bright future ahead of her with all the love and treats her kind sweet nature deserves.
