Dog digs himself out of grave after owners bury him alive

A healthy dog who was given a fatal injection and buried alive by his owners, miraculously managed to dig himself out and search for help.

Seven-year-old German Shepherd, Kiryusha, climbed out of his forest grave after his owners left him for dead, before making his way to the nearest road.

Driver Olga Lystseva, 39, later passed the dog who was walking slowly in the rain down a highway in northern Russia.

But the dog lover couldn’t stop thinking about poor Kiryusha long after she’d continued driving and decided to turn around, driving nine miles back to rescue him.

She found the dog lying wet and exhausted on the roadside. Olga found some food for Kiryusha and put him in the back seat of her car.

He slept all the way to Ukhta, a 93-mile drive, where she handed him to a dog rescue service called Kind City.

Volunteers started sharing pictures of the poor dog and soon discovered he had come from the town of Yemva.

They soon managed to track down the owners, who said they had decided to put the dog down as he was ‘unhealthy’.

The unnamed couple admitted injecting him with a drug intended to kill him – Kiryusha still had a shaven paw from where the dose was administered.

The pair then buried him at a remote spot close to the Ukhta-Syktyvkar highway.

But after running a series of tests, a vet found the animal had no serious medical problems and was healthy other than suffering from starvation.

The couple claimed they buried him alive by ‘mistake’ and apologised, said the animal shelter.

Ekaterina Nimak, from the rescue service, said: ‘Thanks to Olga, Kiryusha has begun a new life. In the shelter, he is very calm.

‘He walks on a leash, does not rush anywhere, rarely conflicts with other dogs and does not bark. He is good-natured with people.’

A local TV station reported that Kiryusha has now been fostered by a local family in a loving home.