Competition Winner - Brian Webber (Vic)

The call I got last Tuesday was really urgent, and I had give up the rest of my day’s work to help. The call came from my son Lee, who in his spare time is an avid fox shooter, and had been pursuing his sport in the Dean area just north of Ballarat. The day was very successful, with the tally of 15 foxes by lunch time when disaster struck. Lee had borrowed two small “Den Dogs” ( fox terrier crosses) from a fellow shooting mate and sent them down a fairly large den in the side of a dam bank.

After a few minutes two foxes were bolted from the den and dispatched forthwith, with a third following, but deciding at the last moment to re enter the den. Without going into detail, what followed apparently was the two courageous pups killing the fox, but unable to get past him in the small burrow to gain their freedom. Lee and his mates spent the next six hours trying to dig down to the dogs, but were defeated by a lack of daylight and the depth of the den. They decided to leave the dog’s boxes near the den opening in the hope that they would dig their way out overnight and go to the boxes. The next morning at daylight revealed that the dogs were still stuck, they could be heard barking and scratching by holding your ear to the ground, but it proved difficult to determine exactly where they were.

Lee had to go to work in Melbourne, but spent the day stressing about the dogs and whether they had enough air to breathe, lack of water etc. At about 2.00 pm he could take it no longer, and rang me to ask if I could attempt a rescue with the Dingo. I arrived at the site at about 3.30, with only two hours daylight left. After attempting to trace the den from the entrance with the trencher, I realized that it was going to be far too deep to continue. By this time it was getting on to dark, and the noises from the dogs were becoming fainter, we were worried they may be suffocating. The den was on a very steep bank, and access with the Dingo was a bit risky, but we decided to try digging down where we last heard them with the post hole digger. After sinking three 350mm holes to about 1 metre, we decided they were roughly in the middle of the triangle, but deeper down. Adding the auger extension, I very slowly dug the fourth hole, and at about 1.8 metres felt the auger break through into the den! I was Sh?!## Myself that I would come down on top of the dogs and kill them, but as luck had it I didn’t.

By this time we were working under the spotlight on Lee’s Ute, and it was getting hard to see down the hole, so we grabbed the faithful old Dolphin torch and had a look at our handiwork. Lo and behold we saw the dirt at the bottom of the hole moving, obviously the dogs trying to dig out, I had sunk the hole a mere 8 inches from where they were trapped! Unfortunately we were just too far from them, and being exhausted after more than 30 hours stuck, they couldn’t quite dig their way out. Things were getting serious, we could hear their rasping breath, and feared that we may have forced more dirt into their limited space by digging.

Further digging with the auger would only worsen the situation, and we couldn’t get a shovel down that far without disturbing the sides of the hole and introducing more dirt. Time for some lateral thinking, I raced home in Lee’s Ute and grabbed the wife’s favorite soup ladle, attached to a broom handle with electrical tape, and we proceeded to empty the hole a ladle at a time. It took a while, but by 7.30 pm we were rewarded by the appearance of a very dirty, very bloody white and brown nose, followed by the rest of “Polly” and her mate behind! Naturally, in true Dingo fashion, the dam bank was restored to original condition with bucket and blade, and both dogs, owners and rescuers were rewarded with a liquid treat.

Just goes to show, with a Dingo nothing is impossible!