In an amazing story of survival, Cassie the kelpie has survived a gruelling three-hour, 250km trip trapped in a hot and cramped truck engine bay.
The working dog lives on the Wills family’s property near Streatham in south-west Victoria. During a storm last week, she found shelter on the back of a worker’s ute, reports ABC Rural.
When the worker travelled home, some 60 kilometres away, Cassie is believed to have made her way to a local truck stop where a K&S Freighters truck was parked for the night.
She has somehow managed to go under the truck and crawl into the engine bay.
Unbeknown to the truck driver, he hit the road the next morning, travelling from Glenthompson to the K&S workshop in Truganina so the truck could be serviced.
And it was there that diesel mechanic Roman Cruz made the miraculous discovery.
“When the boys in the service bay tilted the cab over they found the dog wagging her tail, got her down straight away, and she started walking,” he told ABC Rural.
“It was a hot day on Friday so we led her to an air-conditioned room, gave her four bottles of water, and she was happy as anything. She looked fine.”
Cruz says he has no idea how she survived the ordeal – or how she managed to fit in the engine bay in the first place!
K&S workshop administration coordinator Aliesha Ferguson describes the scene to Big Rigs. “Everyone was just shocked. It was nothing any of us have ever seen before. We’ve seen birds and things but never a dog,” she said.
“And she was alive. Her front paw was bleeding and she was pretty dehydrated, but she was lovely and wasn’t afraid or anything. She was walking around and saying hi to everyone. Everyone loved her, she was the best dog.
“I rang the driver and said you didn’t by any chance leave your dog in the cab?”
Ferguson called around to get Cassie into a vet to have her leg looked at. “The Sunshine Vet Clinic said they’d take her. I left my details and the council said they’d take her to the Lost Dogs’ Home. She was chipped so they got her back with her owner,” she said.
Cassie was brought to The Lost Dogs’ Home in North Melbourne, where she was taken care of by vets, before being reunited with her owners from Streatham who were ecstatic to have her back.
“We were obviously hoping she would be reunited with her owners, but I left my number just in case as we would have adopted her. Cassie’s owner rang me and was very appreciative of having her back,” added Ferguson.