Panicking dog-sitters feared they had lost their charge after the canny collie used a trampoline to bounce over a 7ft fence – after watching the Olympic final.
Collie cross Ziggy was bouncing with David Sharma’s two daughters when the dog jumped too high and vaulted over the wooden fence.
The three-year-old dog was being looked after by David at his home in Canterbury, Kent, and on Friday night the pair had settled down to watch Britain win its first ever medal in the Olympic trampoline event.
But on Sunday morning, Ziggy ended up getting himself in some mischief when he bounded onto their trampoline – and flew over the high wooden fence.
David’s 11-year-old daughter Olivia climbed into their neighbour’s garden retrieve him while the home‘s owners fed Ziggy treats.
The 49-year-old said: “The girls were brilliant and did not panic.
“They just came to me and said ‘we’ve lost the dog‘ and explained that he’d bounced off the trampoline and into the garden behind us.
“The problem was that we didn’t actually know what road it is behind us.
“There are lots of small cul-de-sacs in this area so weren’t sure we’d find him that quickly.
“But when we put a ladder up and looked into the garden, we saw Ziggy just hanging around by the fence with a bemused look on his face, perhaps wondering how he’d got there.”
The incident happened on Sunday morning, just two days after Team GB won its first ever Olympic trampolining medal.
David was dog-sitting for his in-laws, who live in Brighton, while they were on holiday.
He added: “I didn’t actually tell them straight away.
“I thought I’d leave that up to Olivia as she’s the one who lost him.
“The dog had been watching the Olympics with us at home and so perhaps he simply got inspired to train for the next games at Tokyo in 2020.”
