LILYDALE – The saying that a dog is a man’s best friend proved to be true when an old dog assisted a community member in finding its owner’s body.
Ms Sandra Maluleka said that she could no longer bear the dog’s loud barking which had been going on for hours on Sunday afternoon. She then decided to check what the problem was since the owner was not doing anything to silence it.
She said she got worried when she got to her neighbour’s yard, a 78-year-old man, when there was no response to her knocks and the door was locked.
“I then followed the dog to the outside toilet where I had the shock of my life. The old man was dead!” she added.
Maluleka further stated that she last saw him on Friday evening, apparently drunk.
“He was a bit drunk when I last saw him entering his yard at around 17:00 in the evening and to me he didn’t look sick. It never occurred to me that I was seeing him for the last time.”
“I didn’t see the old man the whole of Saturday but I thought that he could be resting, but his dog kept on barking at the toilet so I became concerned and decided to go and check what was going on,” she continued.
She said she immediately alerted other members of the community and his children.
The old man has been living alone for years, with only the dog to keep him company.
“If he wasn’t living alone someone would have noticed that something was wrong earlier and rushed him to hospital. I thank his dog for barking at the toilet endlessly because otherwise it would have taken us longer to discover what had happened.
The man’s family declined to comment saying that they wanted to bury their father with dignity.
A spokesperson for the department of health and social development once again urged community members to look out for one another and notify local social workers of individuals in need of care