Kerikeri's volunteer firefighters
don't bother watching Animal
Rescue on telly. They do it in
real life. Around noon yesterday the
brigade was called out to
Wharau Bay, west of Kerikeri,
where a damsel - more
accurately, a miniature wire-
haired dachshund called Macy
Grey - was in distress and
stuck halfway up a cliff. Thedrama began when
Catharina de Boer and her
neighbour Elisabeth Kirkpatrick
decided to take their dogs -
Macy Grey, her brother George
and Mrs Kirkpatrick's Beowulf
- for a walk along the nearby
beach. All was well until Macy Grey
caught a whiff of something
interesting. ``That little girl, she
gets a scent and she just goes
for it. She doesn't think,'' Mrs de
Boer said. Next thing Macy Grey had
vanished - except for a telltale
bark about 15m up a cliff, where
she was shivering on a ledge too
afraid to come down.
Mrs de Boer stayed at the bottom,
ready to catch her if she fell;
while Mrs Kirkpatrick went to
the top hoping to coax her up. When it was clear Macy
Grey wasn't budging, Mrs
Kirkpatrick called 111. ``I was a bit worried. It
wasn't as if it was a huge
emergency, but they couldn't
have been nicer.'' Meanwhile, the firefighters made it to the the bay in record
time, sending one of their
number down the cliff to
retrieve Macy Grey.
Firefighter Noel Green said
the dog was located on a ledge
partway up a 30m cliff. It was steep but a large
pohutukawa provided an anchor
for the rope. Young firefighter Damien
Bath managed to reach the
dachshund and pass it down to
its owner, he said. Macy Grey was checked at
the scene by an SPCA officer
but was unhurt.
As for Mrs de
Boer, she was shaken but very
grateful. ``It's wonderful that they
traipsed out and helped rescue
her. I feel a bit of a fool, getting
half the fire brigade to come out
- but animals are very
precious,'' she said.
