A lucky little dog was successfully rescued from a canal near the new Mercadona supermarket on the N332 between Guardamar and La Marina by a group of animals lovers who live in the La Marina area. They had been informed of this dog's predicament and although they spent over an hour walking up and down the part of the canal were it had been seen they were unable to locate it. The canal is around 7 kilometers in length and it goes as far as Dolores, the dog could have travelled some distance away from where it was first spotted that morning. The next sighting came two days later when a concerned lady spotted the dog. She decided to phoned the La Marina web team. Yvonne, and her father, always ready to help K9 club and abandoned animals summoned four friends and they all went to the location and started the second rescue attempt. They found the dog but it was very frightened and anxious. It was able to run away into a dry section and the team were not able to get near enough to rescue it. Try as they may on this attempt, in the end it was in vain and sadly the six people involved had to give up.

The next day, with a formulated plan, a hastily assembled canal rescue kit and this time with seven people, including other volunteeers from K9 club, they returned to try once again in the hope that ‘third time lucky’ would be a good omen. A kind passer by could see what they were trying to achieve and then the rescue team became eight strong. They all managed to get into the dry section of the canal with four at each end in the hope to close in on the stranded dog in the middle. On two occasions, in a frightened panic, the dog managed to get past the rescuers and run away.

On the third attempt, with the dog weak from the exaustion after running back and forth for over an hour, and only after the team had borrowed some wooden pallets from a nearby farmers field to construct a partial barricade, they were finally able to trap the dog and one of the team was able to get near enough to make a successful ‘grab’ for it.

Although extremely frightened and timid, she was immediately taken to the San Anton veterinary clinic in Guardamar for a check up. Blood tests for both leishmania and heartworm were taken and the bailing cord tethered tightly round her neck was removed. A farmer had previously reported seeing her run across the N332 towards the canal, and, perhaps in an attempt to avoid the heavy traffic, she had jumped into the water. She then had to swim a long distance before she was able to get to a dry section. Luckily the rescue took place when it did because a few days later the irrigation canal was filled with water.