A heroic dog that saved the life of a neighbour’s drowning dog deserves a medal, says her owner.
Jessie, a two-year-old staffie, alerted her owner to the plight of Molly, who was drowning in the swimming pool of her owner’s neighbours in Simon’s Town last week.
Her baffled owner Natalie Vincent said she was grateful for an enormous bone Jessie received for her heroics, but she deserved a medal.
Reliving the incident on Thursday, Vincent, of Da Gama Park, said: “I was getting ready for work when Jessie began jumping on me and whining. She never does this.”
The dog kept running up and down the passage.
“After doing this for a while, I checked that the back outside door was open and made sure she had food and water
“All this time she kept jumping on me and whining, running a few yards in front of me and back to jump on me,” Vincent said.
A concerned Vincent tried everything to calm the dog, including giving her tuna fish, but to no avail.
Jessie then ran outside into the front garden and Vincent followed her.
“Jessie ran down the pathway and started barking furiously. I followed to see what the problem was,” she said.
After standing on the stoep for a while with no sign of anything wrong, she started hearing sounds from her neighbours’ swimming pool.
She looked over the fence and saw Molly, the neighbours’ six-month-old basset hound, battling in the pool with only her nose sticking out.
“I shouted to my son who jumped into the pool to rescue her,” she said.
They pulled the dog out and she lay on the ground as they resuscitated her.
Jessie had calmed down.
Vincent then phoned Molly’s owners, who were at work and they rushed home.
On Thursday, Anneleze O’Grady thanked Jessie and the Vincents for saving her dog’s life.
“I never talk about my dogs, I refer to them as my children. That’s how important they are to me,” she said.
Molly was doing well at home.
“I don’t think she’ll ever get close to the pool,” said O’Grady.
Still unable to pinpoint how Jessie knew about their neighbours’ dog’s struggle, Vincent said the dog had never acted that way and never received any rescue training. - Cape Times