It was an adventurous afternoon on Sunday for Max and his wife Esther van Zonsbeek. The couple managed to catch a stray dog on the A17 near Moerdijk – with the help of bystanders, the police and Rijkswaterstaat. A bowl of food from their own golden retriever allowed them to catch the four-legged friend. “That dog was completely panicked and running in all directions.”
The couple from Dreumel in Gelderland had just come from a dog competition in Steenbergen, in which they had participated with their own dogs, when they saw a dog running across the hard shoulder on the A17 near the Moerdijk exit. A woman ran after the animal.
Max and Esther didn’t think twice. “We asked that woman if she had already called the police, but she had not yet done so,” Max said on Tuesday. He jumped out of the car to give chase and his wife still called 911 to call for help as quickly as possible and have the highway closed.
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“Fortunately, there were already many motorists who stopped themselves because the dog kept running around in panic,” Max continues. He has nothing but praise for the police and Rijkswaterstaat. “I have never experienced them closing a highway so quickly. Very nice, because it was really a dire situation.” The A17 towards the Klaverpolder junction was closed, but traffic continued to flow in the other direction.
According to him, bystanders therefore gestured to motorists there to drive slower: “But that didn’t happen.” In the meantime, Max tried to catch the dog together with his wife, officers and employees of Rijkswaterstaat.
“Don’t even think about the fact that the dog had crossed.”
“The animal stood against the guardrail of the central reservation the entire time and threatened to cross,” Max looks back. You don’t want to think about what could have happened.” Because the four-legged friend was difficult to catch and because he was so panicked, Max finally took his own dog, a golden retriever, out of the car. And there the dog responded well: he became calmer.
While Max was even bitten by him earlier – when he managed to get hold of the dog. Unfortunately, the animal escaped again at that moment when the line with which a Rijkswaterstaat employee was holding it came loose. At that moment, Max – as a former volunteer at the animal ambulance – decided to take some charge of the rescue effort.
According to him, everyone listened very well when he indicated that he wanted to create ‘peace’ for the scared dog: “Bystanders made themselves small and even sat with their butts on the wet highway.”
“The dog was exhausted and hungry.”
In the meantime, his wife had taken some food for their own dog from the trunk and that turned out to be a golden move; the stray dog liked the food and could be put on a leash: “The animal was exhausted and very hungry. It was actually a very sweet dog who listened well and obediently went into the police van.”
According to Max, it is a German Wirehaired Pointer, a real hunting dog. He and Esther would very much like to get in touch with the dog’s owner to hear how things are going. The animal was reported missing on Saturday by its owner in Zevenbergschen Hoek.