Do you know what DOG ESSENTIALS you are missing out? Find out now!
Zack Keithy, our author, is a certified veterinarian technician (UC Blue Ash) for over 6 years (contact him here). The articles written here are based on his expertise and experience, combined with a review by our expert vet reviewers including Dr M. Tarantino. Learn more about us here.
A woman was hijacked in Bryanston, Johannesburg in the last week of August 2026, with her two dogs in the car at the time. She was dropped off elsewhere by the hijackers, but her dogs were left behind in the vehicle. The suspects later abandoned the dogs in Wynberg, an industrial area near Sandton, before driving off and leaving them alone in an unfamiliar part of the city.
Officer Atang Nyanintsimbi of 24/7 Security Services was starting his evening shift around 6pm when he spotted two dogs wandering the streets of the mostly industrial area, somewhere dogs don’t typically roam unattended. Something about it didn’t sit right with him, so instead of driving on, he stopped, took a few photos, and posted them to a local WhatsApp group to see if anyone recognized them.
That decision turned out to matter. The company’s cluster manager, Sylvester Shikweni, saw the photos and remembered a hijacking case reported earlier that same day, in which the victim had mentioned her two dogs were still in the car. Once the dogs were confirmed as the missing pair, Nyanintsimbi was sent back out to find them again, since by that point night had fallen and they had already wandered off from where he’d first seen them.
Catching them wasn’t simple. The dogs, understandably terrified, wouldn’t let him get close enough to safely get them into his vehicle, so a K9 team was called in. Handlers Keenan Stewart and Ethyn Pretorius approached slowly, gave the dogs water, and stayed with them for close to an hour just to keep them calm. One of the dogs is deaf, so the usual approach of a soft, reassuring voice didn’t help much, instead, she found her own way to feel safe, climbing onto one of the officer’s laps and staying there until help arrived. The owner was called, rushed to the scene, and identified both dogs immediately before finally taking them home.
Commentary: What stands out here is how many small decisions had to line up for this to work, an officer who noticed something slightly off and chose to stop, a manager who happened to remember a report from earlier that day, and a K9 team patient enough to sit with two frightened dogs for the better part of an hour rather than force the situation. None of those individual steps look dramatic on their own, but take any one of them away and the story likely ends differently. It’s a good example of how most rescues aren’t really about one big heroic moment, they’re about a chain of ordinary people doing their job carefully.
Source: Good Things Guy
