The incredible rescue story of the jammy pooch has gone viral around the Valley thanks to one of the community’s most trusted and valuable social media pages – Nambucca Valley Dog Lovers – which boasts some 4000 followers and operates to reunite worried owners with their four-legged escapees.

Maxi’s miraculous tale stands as proof of the amazing power for good that social media can have in a community like ours.

You can read the full story on the Nambucca Valley Dog Lovers page:

The page was started by Macksville’s Glenn ‘Bisho’ Bishop nearly six years ago, after a heart-breaking incident saw him having to tell his five-year-old daughter that their beloved Rusty wouldn’t be coming home anymore.

“I did it out of frustration at how they were treating animals at the Council pound,” Bisho said.

“The number of dogs and cats they were putting down per year was in the hundreds, with only a few being rehomed.”

Their foster dog Rusty was one of the unfortunate pups who never got a second shot at life.

Rusty was forfeited to the Council ranger after a regrettable incident involving a gate being left open and a passing canine and its human.

“After half an hour my daughter said to me ‘Dad I miss Rusty’, and I did too, so we decided to try and get her back,” Bisho said.

“I called the pound but it was already too late – they’d put her down the minute they’d gotten back to the compound.

“It was the hardest thing having to tell my daughter that the ranger had given Rusty a needle to put her to sleep.

“She just said ‘Oh! But can’t they give her another one to wake her back up?’ My heart just broke.

“I started the page as a sort of protest, and so that no other parents would have to go through the same thing with their five-year-olds.”

But ‘sticking it to the man’ wasn’t all sunshine and puppy dog licks.

Bisho unleashed a tempest in his self-appointed role as the new ranger in town.

“People would ring me instead of the pound and I would try to rehome or reunite dogs with their owners. It was illegal, and the Council threatened to take action against me, but I was doing it as a protest against the way the pound was being run,” he said.

It was quite an expensive way to stand his ground in the face of a perceived injustice, with Bisho often taking on the exorbitant costs of desexing, microchipping and vaccinating strays before rehoming them for a fraction of the financial return.

“But I didn’t care. When you’re passionate about something you just go for it,” he said.

After a couple of years of dogmatically fighting the system by independently returning fur babies to their owners or finding new homes for them, the community had really gotten behind him too.

Bisho was nominated for a council Australia Day award for services to the community in 2014.

And he still laughs when he remembers having to collect his award on stage from Council staff members who had previously threatened litigation against his operation.

He no longer takes on dogs as part of the Dog Lovers page – he doesn’t have to.

Council amended its policy regarding strays and unclaimed animals to a ‘zero kill’ one.

“The Council works with rescue organisations and all suitable dogs [i.e. not sick or dangerous] now get another go,” he said.

“Dogs have got it pretty good now in the Nambucca Valley.

“I see the page’s main role now as finding escapees and reuniting them with their owners; we still fill a little bit of a gap with the pound.”

The 24-hour cycle of social media often means that Nambucca Valley Dog Lovers can reunite owners with their lost pets before the ranger clocks on for work the next day.

A few years ago, after years of putting his heart and his wallet on the line, Bisho was dog tired and decided it was necessary for his health to reign in his ‘canine-itarianism’.

That’s when Deb Giles-Antunovich stepped up to the plate as admin of the Nambucca Valley Dog Lovers page.

“She just popped up one day and offered to help – I didn’t know her from a bar of soap,” Bisho said.

“But she’s proven to be such a wonderful asset to the canine community.

“She just gets on with the job and always knows how to word things in just the right way – she’s more diplomatic than I am at any rate.

“Deb’s been responsible now for hundreds of fur kids finding their mums and dads. People who don’t have dogs probably won’t get it, but to dog-owners they’re precious little children, basically.

“And Deb has now done as much work to date – if not more – than I have, so I’m trying to find out how to nominate her for one of those awards.” 

The pair behind the Nambucca Valley Dog Lovers page have now been responsible for over 400 happily ever afters.

Countdown to Lanes Bridge construction

Mel Pavey opens new classrooms for Nambucca school