Midnight the dog has been reunited with her owner after going missing a year ago.
The two-year-old Dobermann mixed breed was found by Kate Lauda and her fiancé, Guy Clark, of Woodbridge Island, last week.
They had been passing a park when they had seen a homeless woman with a chained dog, said Ms Lauda.
Mr Clark spoke to the woman and learnt that the dog was not hers, but she was looking after it.
He went home to fetch some of his dog’s food for Midnight, and Ms Lauda called Rusty’s Rescues, a Milnerton animal-welfare organisation, to collect the dog.
A few hours later, the organisation called the couple to tell them the dog was microchipped and they had the owner’s full details.
The owner, Pumza Dyani, of Goodwood, said Midnight had only been a year old when she had run off after her tenants had accidentally left the gate open. Ms Dyani took to Facebook in March last year in a desperate but futile search for Midnight.
It was a “miracle” that Midnight had returned because she had feared the worst, she said, adding that Midnight was back to her old self and was a “happy and cheerful dog”.
Rusty’s Rescue’s Safra Levin said if it had not been for the homeless woman looking after Midnight, there would have been no hope of her ever being found.
Ms Levin said she wanted to stress how important it was to have a pet microchipped as it made it easier to locate their owners.