The southern suburbs found itself slam-bam in the middle of an unfolding drama these past few weeks that had all of the elements usually associated with an Academy Award Best Picture: love, tears, action-packed chase scenes and, best of all, a happy ending.
But unlike most Hollywood movies, the protagonist of this tale was not a Homo sapien gifted with good looks.
Rather it was a Boston Terrier named Skunk.
It all began on Thursday 16 June when the black and white dog went missing in Overseer Cottages, Constantia Nek.
Green Point resident Rotem Shachar and her husband Andrew Whitehouse were making their way to their car at the Constantia Nek parking lot when the dog ran off.
After a long search on the day the couple put a desperate plea for the lost animal out on social media, one that included a R10 000 reward.
And in true Capetonian fashion a frantic search for the dog ensued, one that included a rescue team, equipped with a thermal drone and the services of an animal communicator to assist with tracking.
A couple of days into the search, Skunk’s story went viral.
The Boston Rescue Society reached out to help and a sniffer dog team arrived from Johannesburg.
Even more drones were used, but to no avail.
Two weeks into the search, the couple and their daughter had to leave for Botswana for a prior engagement.
Whitehouse said they left the country with heavy hearts.
“After two weeks we thought the chance of him being in that area on the mountain is very little and that with his epilepsy he had little chance of survival. We had to leave the country but left our friends and other people in charge.”
Whitehouse said their vet had told them, that with Skunk’s pre-existing condition, the odds of him surviving even three days out in the cold on his own would be small.
But on Tuesday 5 July – 19 days and a well-publicised yet ultimately unsuccessful chase by KFM presenter Carl Wastie later – Skunk was found alive 12 km from where he had gone missing.
Angel Campey, a stand-up comedian and a presenter on Smile 90.4FM, was walking her dog on Rosebank Common, when she was approached by two children who told her a dog was trapped in a storm drain.
Campey shared her experience on Twitter.
“Kids in the play area came to call me to report a sad lone dog trapped in the storm drain,” she wrote.
“Another dog walker joined me and luckily she had her phone so she could take a photo and put it in the area WhatsApp group. The scared dog seemed friendly and shaken. It wasn’t ‘trapped’, just unable to jump out over the high wall.”
Campey said she got a response from the community group that this was the missing dog.
According to Campey, she and the children rescued the dog from the storm drain and took him to the nearest vet.
Whitehouse said, they were still in Botswana and out of signal when Skunk was found.
“The moment we got signal, the messages came flooding in. My wife immediately booked the first available flight out to go and reunite with him.”
Except for a few scratches and weight loss, Skunk seems to be doing fine.
“He hadn’t had his epilepsy medicine, which he takes three times per day, for three weeks. The specialist has seen him and says we will keep him off medication and take it from there. It seems as if the whole ordeal has had an interesting effect on his condition. He has been to the park already and played with his frisbee and he doesn’t seem too traumatised,” Whitehouse said.
Shachar shared that when she got home last Thursday afternoon, she leapt out of the car and ran straight upstairs where Skunk was waiting.
She said his reaction on seeing her was a mixture of emotions.
“He was excited, confused, he seemed a little bit out of things, like he didn’t know what was going on. On the evening, I took note that he is still in a survival, primal state of mind. His needs are warmth and food.”
She said she could see him connecting more with his emotional side as the hours were ticking by.
“He is softening all the time. He is starting to do this thing that he does, like lift his paw. These little connecting points are starting to happen again,” she said.
With the ordeal now finally over, an emotionally drained Shachar said she felt so grateful. She said she never stopped hoping that Skunk would be found.
“This is the ending of dreams, you can’t script this kind of thing up. There were just so much collective energy around his search. It had to end happily. How can so many people be invested, and it not end well,” she said.
As to the reward, Shachar said they will honour their commitment. She said with her only having returned late last week and her husband still in Botswana, they are only now getting clarity on what happened.
“There was more than one person involved. Most are not talking about the reward, it was not the motivator. We are still going to give it to them. Whether it will go to an NPO, that will be up to the individuals,” she said.
