Leané du Plessis, Beeld
Johannesburg - Metro police officers allegedly forced a man on his way to the vet to wait for 20 minutes at a road block in Johannesburg while his ill dog lay in the back of the bakkie suffering, telling him: "Dogs don't count."
El, a Boerbul, later died.
"I could have saved her if so much time wasn't wasted," said Giel van der Merwe, a pensioner from Fourways, on Thursday.
Van der Merwe told how he rushed to the vet with the 12-year-old El at about 08:00 after she presumably had a seizure.
1km journey
The Randburg Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) is about one kilometre from his home, but to get there he had to drive through a roadblock in Witkoppen Road.
"When I saw them standing there, I moved into the right lane to make a U-turn. I didn't want to waste more time and I thought I could use another road."
A minibus full of metro police officers stopped him and were rude from the word go, he said.
"They asked: 'What are you doing?' I pointed to El and said she was ill and needed to get to the vet.
"Then they said: Dogs don't count, you can wait."
Van der Merwe said one official called him a "cheeky old man" and said they would check his registration and licence because he was so cheeky.
"I had to wait there for 20 minutes while they merrily stood chatting at the kombi. By then they had checked everything for quite some time."
When Van der Merwe finally got to the SPCA, it was too late.
"It was so unnecessary."
Prolonged dog's suffering
El's 11-year-old Boerbul mate, Biscuit, lay listlessly on the verandah on Thursday.
"He knows El is no longer there. He keeps looking at the door to see if she won't perhaps turn up.
"You know, it was the biggest pleasure for those two when I put them in the back of the bakkie and drove around with them. Oh, she was such a lovely animal," he said with tears in his eyes.
Randburg SPCA manager Mandy Cattanach said the metro police officials had prolonged El's suffering with their behaviour.
"The dog would probably not have survived, but they prolonged her suffering. If it was a human being, they would probably have accompanied the person to hospital. What makes an animal different from a human being?"
Metro police spokesperson Inspector Edna Mamonyane said a charge would be investigated if Van der Merwe decided to lay one.
"It was wrong of those officials to say animals don't matter," she said.
Van der Merwe said he would lay a charge at the metro police.
- Beeld
