This story began on August 25th, 2019. One Sunday, a lady from Victoria in south-eastern Australia was awoken by the sounds of whimpering coming from her backyard. It turned out to be a puppy, but he was very unusual and way too fluffy. According to Yahoo News, after finding the animal, the woman asked for help on Facebook as she wanted to know what kind of animal it was.

Australian lady found a weird puppy in her backyard in August

She asked what kind of animal it was on Facebook

People on Facebook doubted that it was an ordinary dog. Some said it was a fox, others believed it was a dingo, a native Australian dog. The next day, the lady took the animal to the vet and came back with a definitive answer. Yes, it was in fact a wild dingo.

Turns out, it was a wild dingo

Of course, her children wanted to keep the adorable animal, but the mother was against it, even though the pup wasn’t afraid of people and was calm. Rebekah Day, a vet who worked at the hospital where they brought the pup also said according to CNN that after discovering the animal, people thought he was somebody’s lost dog and didn’t really do anything. But nobody was looking for him and wanting to get him back, so they started getting suspicious.

How did a dingo pup end up in the backyard?

The veterinarian also has an opinion on that. Rebekah noticed marks on the dingo’s back that looked like scratches made by a large bird of prey. Probably it snatched the pup away from his family and was planning to snack on him, but something went wrong.

What happened to the pup after the visit to the vet?

After Lyn Watson, the director of the Australian Dingo Foundation found out about the dingo pup, she contacted Rebekah. She said that she would take the animal into her care and asked the vet to send his genetic samples to the University of New South Wales for tests.

Now, the pup has a name (Wandi) and lives with other dingoes at the Australian Dingo Foundation

The tests took six to eight weeks to yield results. Wandi is a 100% purebred dingo. The foundation’s team was extremely happy. Now, he will become an important part of their breeding program, which consists of 40 adult animals. One of the goals of the foundation is to prevent the extinction of purebred dingoes.

Besides, Wandi is one of the few endangered alpine dingoes

As Lyn Watson told ABC, Wandi is an alpine dingo. And this close-to-extinct breed is what concerns the organization the most, as they share areas where 80% of the Australian population lives. That’s why Wandi’s discovery is so important for preserving the breed.

Meanwhile, Wandi has grown a little

And now he has his own Instagram

These are photos of him when he was a small puppy

You can see how he grew over time

That’s him now, just look at him! No bird would want to try and snatch this big boy now! Best of luck, Wandi!