Hikers Discover A Dog Who Had Been Missing For Almost A Month In Australian National Park

The Australian outback isn’t forgiving, so when some bushwalkers in Queensland came across a dog struggling in a rock pool, they knew they had to act quickly.

Dangerm0use, a Reddit user, was walking through Mt. Glorious National Park with her husband and father when they came across the exhausted dog. They got to work, not knowing how long the dog had been in the water, where it had come from, or whether it was even friendly.

“In any case, we couldn’t leave it in the freezing water. It was completely exhausted from struggling out of the deep section it had fallen into, and there’s no way it would’ve survived the night,” the woman wrote.

The hikers wrapped a rope around the dog’s head and shoulders and dragged her onto a rock embankment, using the largest stick they could find.

“The dog wasn’t aggressive at all, in fact, he lumbered away from us, up the bank, and into the thick lantana beside the pool,” she explained. “We figured if she’d been someone’s pet, she might have been dumped or lost.”

The dog was hesitant to join the group, but they weren’t about to abandon her.

“She was in a completely inhospitable area of the bush, in a gully with a cliff face and hectares of national park on one side and a scrubby, rocky, unscaleable bank up to a busy road on the other. There were also no houses within a 5km radius, and no obvious way for her to make her way out of the gully,” she explained. “We saw her podgy little rump vanish into the lantana, leaving us no choice but to wade in after her.”

They attempted to console the dog and allow her to regain her strength. This 88-pound pup was going to need more than just encouragement to get out of the gully.

“She was depressed and obviously exhausted.” I yanked the lantana from her nest and moved in closer, allowing her to get used to our presence. She was still nervous, but not aggressive, so after a while I took a chance and scratched her on the head… and she rewarded me with a lick on the hand,” the woman wrote. “Despite the fact that we had obviously been camped there for at least a few days, we noticed that our little companion wasn’t exactly lacking in mass, prompting us to dub her Miss Piggy. We spent a little more time getting to know Miss Piggy while we devised a strategy to get her out.”

They were able to make a harness out of a strong rope and a few slip knots and pull Miss Piggy out of the pit, over loose rocks and brush.

“The little sweetie expressed her gratitude for our patience by wriggling over to me and resting her head on my leg. I didn’t want to get too close to her at this point, but she gave me permission to give her a reassuring cuddle,” the woman wrote. “It was becoming clear that she wouldn’t be able to make it up the bank unless we carried her, so we started discussing harness and hammock setups made out of towels and ropes. My husband had an epiphany when he remembered we had a large canvas bag in our car (15 mins walk back up the creek).We figured that if we could get her into the bag, we could MacGyver together some apparatus to transport her out.”

The woman’s brother and father lifted Miss Piggy out of the gully and carried her back to safety by fastening the canvas bag to a large branch. The 3-meter vertical climb to the nearby street took all of 30 minutes.

Her owner was still hoping for the best about 15 kilometers north of where the dog was discovered. The dog, whose real name is Elly-Bobby, went missing on June 30 and was discovered on July 23. The hikers had no idea what she had been up to during that time.

“Her health was surprisingly good for a puppy who had been homeless for nearly a month. We also have no idea how she ended up in such a remote part of the bush, with no signs of injury and only the most basic signs of exposure,” the woman wrote. “We had speculated that she had been picked up and later dumped, or that she had found a temporary home but had not stayed. Whatever the story was, we were just glad to be in the right place at the right time to assist her.”

Bobby’s owner never gave up hope that she would return home, and had mounted a large Facebook and neighborhood poster campaign in the hopes of finding her. The couple, like many others who followed the story, were overjoyed to be reunited. Dangerm0use’s photo journal went viral after she posted it to Reddit, and it has since been viewed over 500,000 times.

“Whatever the story was, we were just grateful to be in the right place at the right time to be able to help her,” she wrote.

It’s never easy to lose a pet, but there’s no better feeling than seeing those happy tails wag back home. Take a look at some lost dogs who have found their way home.