'I thought I had lost my dog forever'

There are not many relationships more special than that between a man and his dog.

So when Max spotted rabbits while out for a walk about 7am in Barnett Park, Redcliffs, last week with owner Robert Jiang, he did what dogs do – he chased them.

But this time Max didn’t come back.

“It was still dark, I tried to find him but I couldn’t,” said Jiang. Max didn’t respond to shouts to his name.

Concern turned to worry, and then stress as the hours ticked by.

There was no sign of Max. Jiang feared the worst: His beloved companion he and his family had taken in four years ago was gone.

Jiang searched relentlessly in between heading backwards and forwards to the nearby BP Redcliffs he owns.

He circled the 2.5km cave loop track in Barnett Park five times in a bid to find Max. But to no avail.

“I was really worried and concerned, very stressed and exhausted as well. I thought I had lost my dog forever,” he said.

Jiang was also worried about his wife, Jing Xu and son, Geffrey, if he came home from work without Max.

“I was too scared to go home, that’s why I was still looking at 6 o’clock.”

Jiang posted a missing message on Facebook about 5pm in the hope someone had seen Max.

But unbeknown to him about the same time a member of the public had spotted a german shepherd wandering in Barnett Park and called 111. It was Max.

The Sumner Volunteer Fire Brigade responded and began scouring the park. Thirty minutes later they found Max sitting down on a track about two thirds of the way up the gully.

They gave him water, used their climbing equipment as a makeshift harness to walk him down the track, and then took back to the fire station.

Enter Kim Rowlands, wife of station officer, Kevin Rowlands. She saw the post from Jiang on the Sumner community Facebook page and alerted her husband.

Jiang was called and told his dog was at the station.

“I was very happy, it was quite a big surprise. I appreciated their help and thanked them for their contribution, they are very important to our community,” he said of the fire brigade.

Four years ago, Jiang took in Max “for a week” from a friend who had been looking after him after his previous owners returned home overseas.

The dog was very aggressive and had eye and skin problems.

But in the week he was with Jiang, his behaviour improved and he followed him wherever he went.

The dog also reminded Jiang of a german shepherd he had who was killed by a car in 2007 – his name was Max.

So Jiang decided to keep the dog who needed a home, and named him Max.