Rotorua community pulls together to rescue 'beautiful' dog left in Mamaku Ranges

Phoenix with his new pack, being looked after by Alison Richardson and Karl Oxbury. Photo / Mead Norton

A dog tied up and abandoned in the Mamaku Ranges for up to three weeks will make somebody a "wonderful pet" one day, its foster mum says.

The dog was rescued last weekend after a member of the Mamaku Noticeboard Facebook page posted about a dog that had been abandoned on Phoenix Rd.

As soon as Rotorua woman Leah van der Horst saw the post, she knew she had to help. Enlisting the help of her partner Nathan, his friend Luke and his partner, the group got to work.

Phoenix Rd has no vehicle access, so the group were concerned about how far away the dog might be - but when they found him he was only a few metres down the road.

When van der Horst saw the dog's condition, she "instantly started crying".

"He was tied up, tangled around a tree, so it didn't even look like he could really lie down or anything like that. Someone must have dumped him out there because there was a bed... it's crazy to think that humans can be that horrible," van der Horst said.

Phoenix was rescued from the Mamaku ranges by a joint community effort. Photo / Supplied

At first, the dog was "really growly and snappy, he was really scared and really skinny".

The group fed him some food they had in their ute, which calmed him down.

"When Luke had the first touch of him, [the dog] started crying and wagging his tail and was happy," van der Horst said.

"Once we took him off the chain, he was just like this new dog."

Van der Horst took him home with them and named him Phoenix after the road he was found on.

"He's such an awesome dog. I don't know how someone can just dump him in the bush."

Van der Horst said they or their friends would have loved to keep Phoenix, but their circumstances meant it wasn't to be.

"We're still really sad [to let him go], but we're also happy that he's going to a nice home."

That nice home was found by Lisa Foster, the founder of the Animals Are Hungry Too Facebook group in Rotorua.

Animals Are Hungry Too founder Lisa Foster, with her current foster puppies Kimmy (left) and Lacey. Photo / Andrew Warner

Foster's group provides free food packs and kennel packs with new bedding to struggling pet owners, as well as assisting with picking up and rehoming abandoned animals.

When van der Horst reached out to find Phoenix a new home, Foster knew someone who would be great and reached out to her friend Alison Richardson, who came and got Phoenix an hour after van der Horst dropped him off.

When Foster handed Phoenix to Richardson and watched him drive away to a safe and loving home, she "bawled her eyes out".

"I need to make sure they're okay before I can put any emotion or anything into it... when I know they're safe and gonna be okay, that's when the emotion kicks in," Foster said.

When asked how common these kinds of emergency rescues were, she said "you wouldn't believe".

Foster said it's a problem that's getting "hugely" worse, as rescue shelters are stretched beyond their capacities.

She said a lot of people take on animals without the funds to get them desexed, which results in babies they can't handle. She blamed the cost of living for the situation.

Phoenix getting pats from his foster mum Alison Richardson. Photo / Mead Norton

"People can hardly afford anything these days - look at the petrol costs, the food costs - desexing and things like that are not at the top of people's priority lists."

Phoenix's foster mum Richardson said the dog is "just adorable".

"He's such an easygoing, laid-back dog. He's settled in with our dogs really well, and our cats - he shows no interest in trying to eat our chickens or ducks. He's just absolutely beautiful."

Richardson said he has some "old-looking wounds" on him, which her vet said may have been caused when he was tied up.

The vet thought Phoenix had been left out there for two or three weeks.

"The pads on one of his front feet are quite sore, where he's obviously tried to scramble to get away."

The focus was on trying to get his weight up. Richardson gives him three small meals a day to "build him up" safely.

Three of Richardson's dogs sleep in a row of kennels, and on Phoenix's very first night, he went right into the fourth one "like he'd always lived there".

Phoenix will stay with the Richardsons "as long as it takes to basically build up his confidence and trust in people again, as well as building up his weight".

"He's gonna make somebody such a wonderful, wonderful pet."