Wilgers resident reunited with her beloved dog, Java
After an hour's search, out of nowhere Java came running down the street straight into his owner's arms.
Java, the 12-year-old Jack Russell who went missing earlier this week, was reunited with his family late Thursday afternoon.
The dog went missing on Tuesday when it was stolen along with owner Madeleen van Niekerk’s car. According to Van Niekerk, it had been “three days of tears – the first two being tears of sorrow and the following day tears of joy”.
Van Niekerk received a phone call from a resident in Eersterust informing her that she might have spotted the long-eared, one-eyed Jack Russell.
She immediately drove to where the lady saw Java on the corner of Tigris Avenue and Hans Coverdale Road.
READ MORE: Dog missing after owner’s car was stolen
After an hour’s search, out of nowhere, Java came running down the street straight into his owner’s arms. “
We found him a block away from where the resident first saw him. “I am over the moon to have him back next to me,” she said.
She made a pitstop at Silverwater Crossings in Meyerspark to deliver rusks in her white Volkswagen Polo on Tuesday just after 13:00.
When she walked back to her vehicle merely 20 minutes later, her car was gone. I was devastated. “I have shed many tears over the past couple of days.
“I will never be able to thank the resident, who informed me of Java, enough,” Van Niekerk said.
During the first lockdown last year, the Van Niekerk family visited Madeleen’s parents’ farm in Waterval Boven, Mpumalanga.
A Mozambican spitting cobra bit Java in its left eye and the family had to rush back to Pretoria to get him to the nearest vet.
A cancerous tumour was also cut out of one of his front legs, but the cancer unfortunately returned.
Java is the family’s “firstborn” when he became part of the Van Niekerk family about 13 years ago. Van Niekerk now has three children of her own.
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