Puppies saved from cardboard inferno

KYLE Johnson and Tayla Pierrot’s suspicion that a box in a Kloof parking lot contained live animals paid off when the young couple discovered it was full of abandoned puppies.

Pierrot (19) and her boyfriend, Johnson (22), were on their way to gym when Johnson thought he spotted a box moving as they drove into the busy Kloof shopping centre’s parking lot.

“Kyle saw a small nose poking through a tiny hole in the box. We immediately jumped out our car and rushed to the box. We could hear the puppies crying. The box was completely taped shut, with only two small holes on each side. The box was about 45 centimetres in size. We rushed to tear the box apart and found five puppies inside, four males and one female,” Pierrot said.

She said when Johnson tore the box open, he couldn’t believe how hot it was inside. They believed had they not arrived when they did, the puppies would have been a lot worse off, or even dead. A vet confirmed that the puppies were Labrador crossed with Rottweiler puppies and were about four to six weeks old.

One of the pups was extremely dehydrated: “Kyle bought the pups water and a bowl to give them water there, but the pups were too weak to drink. One puppy was so weak it couldn’t even drink water on its own. We had to give it water using a syringe. But the pup quickly recovered.”

Pierrot said a couple at the mall saw the commotion and asked what was going on. “When they heard the puppies were abandoned, they took one of them home. When we got home we put the story on Facebook and shared it on the Upper Highway Info page. Within three hours the remainder of the puppies had homes, we were just waiting to get confirmation. By the next day they had all gone to their new homes,” she said.

She said they asked around if anyone had seen who left the box there, but no information was forthcoming. When they questioned the car guard on duty, he too refused to talk and said he knew and saw nothing and didn’t know the puppies were there.

“But I spoke to the security manager earlier this week, who asked me to point out which car guard I spoke to, so they can see if they can get to the bottom of the story,” Pierrot added.

For Pierrot and Johnson it was hard to say goodbye to their new friends: “It was so hard to give them away. We wanted to keep all of them. But we already have dogs. It was heartwarming to see how many people wanted to help, especially not knowing the dogs’ circumstances.”

Pierrot and Johnson thanked Kyle Naidoo, Francois de Wet, Nicholas Johnson, Natalie Graham and the unknown couple from the parking lot for taking home the pups.