Franz Van Derpoll was spearfishing 6km off Johns Creek Harbour (Australia) when he found himself surrounded by sharks. Sky (his dog) jumps over the side of the boat trying to protect her owner.
“I had two good years with her in the end but sometimes I wish it was me and not her … I’m 62 and I’ve had dogs all my life but she was just one of those dogs; Sky was special.”
Sky was no ordinary Pilbara dog.
For the past two years, the harbour near Point Sampson was her home and Mr Van Derpoll said there wasn’t a man who worked there who didn’t know her extraordinary story.
“Everyone at the harbour knows Sky, every single person,” he said.
“She never left the harbour … that was her home.
“When I got her she became my dog but she’s what we call a crog, which is what we call a creek dog down here … a dog who owns the creeks and there’s only been three so far.
“She was with me 24/7, if I was driving a fork lift to work she was on the forklift … if I went out on the boat doing passenger runs she was on the boat with me.”
A commemorative plaque will be put down in the harbour for Sky.
General – GEN – A devastated skipper says his faithful dog Sky was probably trying to protect him when it was taken by a shark off Point Sampson, 1260km north of Perth. Sky is pictured with with Mr Van Derpoll’s grandaughter Shanaye Freegard, 8. Picture: Kate Freegard.
A young great white shark is rescued from a sandbar on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, on Tuesday. People on the beach doused the shark with buckets of water until officials arrived who, after tying a rope to its tail and carefully dragging it back to water, guide it back out to sea. Witnesses said the two-metre male was stranded by a receding tide.
