A DASH OF PEPPER, A POUND OF PERSEVERANCE

Professional photography by Caroline Hartley Photography 

How one little Fox Terrier cross united a city, tested a father’s resolve, and reminded us all that hope is strongest when shared.

There are stories that make the news. Then there are stories that touch the heart of an entire community and move around the world.

Pepper’s is one of those stories.

For eleven agonising days from the 14^th to the 25^th of June, a small black-and-white Fox Terrier named Pepper captivated Cape Town as hundreds of strangers followed his disappearance on Table Mountain, hoping against hope that he’d somehow survive one of South Africa’s most unforgiving landscapes.

But this isn’t merely the story of a dog lost and found. It’s the story of love that refused to surrender. It’s the story of a father who never stopped climbing, hiking, and pounding the mountainside until he found his boy.

The Day Everything Changed

On Sunday, the 14^th of June, what began as an ordinary walk on Table Mountain became every dog owner’s worst nightmare. Erwin Moses, owner of Pepper, drove the hour trip from their home in Stellenbosch for Pepper and Erwin to enjoy a beautiful walk above the Pipe Track above Camps Bay, Cape Town.

Two dogs charged towards Pepper whilst on the Pipe Track near Kasteelspoort Ravine, frightening him and causing him to set off before disappearing from sight about 200 metres in the distance.

His owner, Erwin, searched desperately that day, convinced that somehow his beloved companion would emerge from the fynbos. He didn’t.

For Erwin’s daughter, Nicole, the phone call announcing Pepper’s disappearance reopened wounds that had barely begun to heal. Only a year earlier, the family had lost Erwin’s wife. Pepper was a son to Erwin and his late wife, sleeping on their bed and accompanying them wherever they went.

After Erwin’s wife passed away, Pepper became his constant comfort through the loneliest chapter of his life. Losing Pepper felt unthinkable, unimaginable, simply unbelievable.

“We couldn’t lose him too,” Nicole later said.

Every Morning Began with Hope

For the next eleven days, Erwin’s life followed the same relentless routine. Before sunrise he drove the one-hour trip from Stellenbosch to Table Mountain. He searched every slope, ravine and rocky ledge. He stayed until darkness forced him off the mountain.

Every evening he drove home without Pepper. Every morning he got up and did it all again. There was heartbreak in that journey, utter exhaustion, complete uncertainty, but there was never surrender.

A Search That Became a Movement

At first, it was simply a family searching for their dog. But as hours turned into a day, and a day into many, word soon spread and Cape Town assembled.

Neighbours shared Pepper’s story, people distributed posters, businesses displayed them, friends and family showed up to search, and complete strangers became teammates in the search for Pepper.

Jolene Harris from Lamberts and Elands Animal Protection Services (LEAPS), a resident of Camps Bay, was away when Pepper went missing. On returning to Cape Town on the 16^th of June, she flew into her home to grab her hiking boots and binoculars and headed for the mountain, an area she was completely not familiar with.

Jolene’s love for animals runs deeper than she can express – and lost dogs are her Achilles Heel. When she hears about a lost dog, she simply cannot bear the thought of the pain the family is feeling, and wants to provide help and guidance where she can.

But Jolene wasn’t alone in these efforts. People assembled, people searched – too many names to mention. Heroes without capes. Everyone put their knowledge together to try and help a father who was exhausted and overwhelmed.

“I’ve had the heartache of having to search for many dogs in my years of animal welfare,” Jolene says. “Walking alongside distraught owners, trying to hold them up, both mentally and sometimes physically. When I met Erwin, I knew I wasn’t leaving his side until Pepper was found. Erwin’s perseverance was quite extraordinary. Twelve years my senior, and yet I couldn’t physically keep up with him in his unwavering search for Pepper.”

Jolene “hijacked” Erwin’s hiking WhatsApp group, suggesting people join if they could assist in any way with the search. Waking up every morning, there were at least ten more people who’d joined to provide input or ask where they could assemble to search. By the time Pepper was rescued, the group had 200 members!

But as each day came to a close, Erwin would call out to Pepper: “Come boy, come pal, it’s time to go home!” and whoever was walking with him would wipe away tears as they witnessed a father’s heartbreak a little more with each sunset.

“Each day Erwin would remind me that it was day eight or day nine, and I’d reply: ‘Your boy is resilient, there are grass and plants to eat, and they retain a lot of moisture which Pepper will absorb’,” Jolene recalls. “I’d recount the miraculous searches and rescues I have witnessed, and I’m sure he started to think I was making it all up.”

But, as much as she kept up a strong façade for Erwin, Jolene herself struggled; “I was dying inside. I don’t have magical skills, and just like everyone else searching, it felt like we were looking for a drop in the ocean and not just a needle in a haystack. I succumbed to waves of nausea, especially leaving the mountain every night. When I drove home, I was so certain I would see Pepper walking down Camps Bay Drive, but every night I’d pull into my driveway and drag myself into the shower trying to get my thoughts together to work out what areas we were searching the next day.”

As the days passed, professional drone operators were called in to scan the mountain from above, sniffer dogs searched below, and pet communicators were called upon for their expertise from as far as Italy. Search-and-rescue specialists rappelled down the most dangerous of terrain. Someone even started a crowdfunding campaign to assist with covering costs associated with the search.

Each morning before work, people would post the areas they were searching and every evening, people finished work, collected headlamps and hiking boots, and returned to the mountain.

They exchanged sightings, planned new search routes, encouraged one another, but most importantly, held up Erwin with their words and actions. What began as one family’s heartbreak became a city-wide mission built on compassion.

Jolene recalls meeting up with Erwin’s friends and family members who travelled from far distances to search. She recounts how they were this incredible team who stuck together holding up Erwin. She saw them getting more and more weary every day, and yet they showed up after work and walked in the dark with Erwin waiting for any sign of Pepper.

A Father’s Love Tested

The mountain itself was unforgiving. Twice, Erwin needed rescuing while searching for Pepper. Once, hikers assisted him off the mountain after he failed to return from the Pipe Track. Another time, rescuers had to rope him and his incredible nephew Jason, who barely left his side, to safety after they became stranded on unstable cliffs while looking for Pepper.

Nothing stopped Erwin. When fear set in, he just didn’t show it. Instead, he showed up, and he searched – one day walking 24 kilometres. His determination became legendary among those following the search.

The Breakthrough

Then, after eleven seemingly endless days, hope finally bloomed.

Late on Wednesday afternoon, Pepper was spotted on the lower slopes below Corridor/Oudekraal Ravine by Erwin and fellow search volunteer Barry Washkansky, who owns a hiking company, Take A Hike.

Barry had been called the day before by Dalit Cohen, another incredible person who supported Erwin every step of the way. Barry happily volunteered his time to take a walk with Erwin to the area Erwin kept getting drawn back to. The plan was for Barry to work out how to rappel this area the following day.

Whilst scanning the area below Oudekraal Ravine, Barry saw Pepper trotting along – Erwin saw him too before he disappeared around a bush.

He was alive. Nobody could imagine how he got himself down there, but he was alive and didn’t appear injured.

Jolene recalls the call she had anxiously been waiting for: “When I’m searching for a lost dog, I try not to call owners unless absolutely necessary. Besides disturbing them whilst searching, I know they go through the same feeling that I do when that phone rings. My stomach flips in the hope the person calling says they’ve seen or, better still, have Pepper.”

But then the phone rang. “At 17h30 on Wednesday, the 24^th of June, my husband and I were searching in the Kasteelspoort area – about 45 minutes’ walk from where Erwin was at the time,” says Jolene. “I’d just crawled out from searching in a cave formation – a perfect hiding spot. Because it was later in the day, I thought the call was Erwin making his daily check-in with me, reminding me it was Day 10. How would I find the words to keep him going when my own heart was breaking in a million pieces and exhaustion was setting in on every front? Instead, I heard ‘We’ve seen him – Pepper is alive!’”

Matthew Collier-Reed, of Mountain Search and Rescue, who’d previously rappelled down the treacherous Slangolie Ravine to search for Pepper, had consistently said that if Pepper was spotted –day or night – and needed their assistance, he and his team would be there. Jolene immediately contacted him, and true to his word, Matthew assembled a team of members from Wilderness Search and Rescue who descended nearly 150 metres by rope to reach Pepper.

Pepper was stranded on a precarious part of the slope that couldn’t safely be accessed on foot without rope assistance.

The rescue had only just begun.

Negotiating with a Terrier

Pepper had survived eleven days alone on the mountain. Naturally, he wasn’t eager to trust the strangers trying to save him.

Rescuers patiently offered water and treats while calming the frightened Pepper.

Whenever anyone moved too close, Pepper became frightened enough to risk falling from the ledge. Commencing with four rescuers, it was decided to bring in reinforcements about five hours into the rescue. Without hesitation, more volunteer rescuers arrived, including from K9 Search and Rescue, using their expertise in handling dogs.

After a gruelling eight hours, rescuers carefully approached and gently secured Pepper beneath protective jackets, and placed him safely into a specially ventilated rescue backpack.

Pepper voiced his opinion with one quick nip – a reminder that even grateful dogs sometimes need convincing.

Just before dawn, shortly after 04h35 on Thursday, the 25^th of June, Pepper, Erwin and the rescue teams finally walked off the mountain together. Nearly two weeks of heartbreak ended beneath the first light of morning.

Hours of waiting

Jolene recalls those hours of waiting: “Once we’d met the initial rescuers and saw them off at the base of the mountain, we rushed home to get hot chocolate ready, and Dalit cleverly ordered some food for us to have ready for the rescuers, Erwin and Pepper, of course. Knowing that Erwin was safe in a cave nearby the search party with Barry at his side, our job was to have everything ready for their descent. We called and messaged Erwin regularly. He asked one thing of me: ‘Don’t go to sleep on me’. Never. When the 25^th of June rolled around, I realised this was going to be a marathon and not a sprint. Whilst Erwin had practised the incredible art of perseverance for eleven days, it was now a game of patience.

“We then heard reinforcements were being sent in. I was filled with two emotions – fear that they needed to call in reinforcements, but elation that I knew now that this team wasn’t leaving the mountain without Pepper.

“Finally, at 03h00, Erwin called to say they were coming off the mountain. The rescue team – which had now increased to an incredible thirteen people – had saved and rescued Pepper.

“I spend a lot of my life in animal welfare trying to get people to see animals as sentient beings, and not just ‘things’ that belong to people. This is at the foreground of our fight for better animal legislation and reform. These thirteen rescuers treated Pepper’s rescue like any human rescue. In fact, they needed to be even more prepared because they couldn’t explain to the victim what they were there to do. Pepper saw everyone as a threat. It was pitch dark and the area wasn’t a part of the mountain one would voluntarily try to traverse.

“I personally cannot find enough words of thanks for this team. I had the honour of meeting each of them, and the absolute dedication to their volunteer work and humble dispositions felt like I was in the presence of greatness.”

A Father’s Heart Made Whole

There are reunions for which we cannot find the words to express the emotions, pain, and relief that everyone involved experienced. This was one of them.

After eleven days of uncertainty, Erwin finally wrapped his arms around the little dog for whom he’d refused to stop searching.

Pepper cried and moaned throughout the journey home, as though asking where everyone had been, or he was simply recounting his experiences.

A father’s heart that had been shattered for eleven days was finally whole again.

More Than a Rescue

Pepper’s story became something much larger than the rescue of one little dog. It became a reminder that compassion still flourishes, that strangers can become family, that kindness travels astonishing distances.

And that miracles sometimes arrive wearing hiking boots, offering electrolyte drinks, handing over an energetic stone to hold onto, and carrying ropes and rescue packs.

Yet perhaps the greatest lesson learnt belongs to Erwin himself. For eleven days he climbed a mountain because someone he loved was waiting. He showed us that perseverance is love in action. That hope is a choice renewed every morning. And that sometimes, against every reasonable expectation, refusing to give up changes everything.

“An owner can NEVER give up searching,” emphasises Jolene. “They must personally search. They cannot rely on their pet ‘showing up’ in an obvious place. They also cannot rely on other people to find their pet. It’s not a fair expectation, and a lost pet will generally not respond to a stranger. When people ask me ‘When should I stop searching?’, my answer is always the same: ‘When you find your pet’.”

Pepper came home because a father never stopped believing, and because an entire community carried a broken-hearted family. In a world often overwhelmed by stories of division, Pepper reminded us of something beautifully simple: When people come together with compassion, determination and hope, even the impossible can become possible.

Welcome home, Pepper. You were worth every step, every sleepless night, every tear, and every ounce of perseverance.

Nicole Clarence shares...

There are moments in life that change you forever.

Losing my mom was one of them.

A year later, in that very same month – the month that already carried so much grief – we received another phone call that made my heart stop.

My dad had been walking with Pepper on the mountain, like they’d done so many times before. 

Then, in an instant, another dog ran towards Pepper and chased him out of sight.

When the phone rang and I heard those words – “Nicole, I can’t find Pepper anywhere” – my stomach dropped.

Pepper isn’t just a dog.

He’s my mom and dad’s dog.

He’s one of the last living pieces of a life they’d shared together. He’d been loved endlessly by my mom, and after losing her, he’d become my dad’s faithful companion through the loneliest days.

We couldn’t lose him too.

Not this way.

Within hours, my sister, who lives in the UK, and I began doing everything we possibly could from wherever we were. We shared his missing poster, contacted anyone who’d listen and prayed that someone, somewhere, would see him.

At first, it was just family searching.

Then something beautiful happened.

People who’d never met us started caring.

Neighbours shared Pepper’s story.

Friends shared it.

Then strangers shared it.

Soon, Camps Bay seemed to know who Pepper was.

Complete strangers offered to hike with my dad.

People printed posters before we could even ask.

Businesses put them in their windows.

Phone calls were made.

Messages poured in.

People offered advice, encouragement and hope.

Professionals volunteered their time.

Drones searched from above.

Sniffer dogs searched below.

Pet communicators gave their time.

Search and Rescue volunteers walked countless kilometres.

Someone even started a BackaBuddy campaign for Pepper.

I remember sitting there completely overwhelmed. How could people who didn’t know us care this much?

But they did.

Every single day, before the sun came up, my dad drove from Stellenbosch to the mountain. He searched until sunset. He stayed with family nearby because every extra minute mattered.

Some evenings, after everyone else had gone home, he’d sit quietly on the mountain in the fading light, listening.

Hoping.

Waiting.

Night-time was often when Pepper became brave enough to move. So Dad waited for him.

Day after day.

Never giving up.

Then something else happened that I’ll never forget.

People would finish work, rush home, grab a torch or hiking shoes and head straight back to the mountain.

Every evening they regrouped.

They compared sightings.

Planned new routes.

Shared ideas.

Encouraged one another.

Then they’d wake up the next morning and do it all again.

Watching my dad through those long days taught me something I’ll carry forever: Love doesn’t stop when things become difficult. Love keeps climbing. Love keeps hoping.

Love refuses to leave the mountain.

Behind the scenes, my sister and I tried to keep everything moving.

Hundreds of messages.

Organising volunteers.

Updating social media.

Making phone calls.

Trying to stay strong while our dad carried the physical search.

None of it would have been possible without Jolene from LEAPS, Dalit Cohen and the 180+ WhatsApp group volunteers. Their compassion and selflessness carried us through some incredibly dark moments.

They never made us feel like Pepper was “just another dog”.

They understood.

One evening my dad said something I’ll never forget – “Even when we were losing hope… the people supporting us never did. They just wouldn’t give up.”

Those words perfectly describe every single person who walked this journey with us.

Then, after eleven unimaginably long days…

The phone call finally came from my dad. They spotted Pepper while hiking with a mountain guide.

Pepper had been found! 

When my dad finally wrapped his arms around him, he said Pepper cried and moaned the entire drive home, almost as if he was asking: “What took you so long?”

When he walked through the front door, our two little Yorkie puppies were waiting.

Pepper ate a warm chicken dinner as though it was the best meal he’d ever tasted.

He pulled out every toy he owned.

He ran lap after lap around the house.

He sniffed every room.

Every familiar smell.

Every corner.

He couldn’t settle.

Maybe he was making sure home was still there. Maybe he simply couldn’t believe he’d made it back.

The following day he enjoyed something wonderfully ordinary – a warm bubble bath. He desperately needed it after eleven days on the mountain.

He visited the vet, and absolutely nothing was wrong with him. Lost six kilograms, however. 

He went for a gentle neighbourhood walk.

And slowly…

The Pepper we knew started coming back.

He rolled over asking for belly rubs.

He played gently with our puppies again.

He looked peaceful.

Healing, we’ve learnt, doesn’t happen all at once.

It happens one small step at a time.

Going forward, life will look a little different.

Pepper will always wear a lead.

Not because we don’t trust him.

But because we can’t control what another frightened or reactive dog might do.

He’ll wear a GPS tracker.

Because eleven days without him was eleven days too many.

Soon, my dad and Pepper will leave the mountain behind and begin a gentler chapter together on the beaches of Pringle Bay.

The mountain gave us one final miracle.

Now the sea can give them peace.

Every sunrise walk along the shoreline will be for my mom.

Every footprint in the sand another reminder that love never truly leaves us.

It simply walks beside us in different ways.

So if you ever find yourself in Pringle Bay and you happen to see an older gentleman walking a handsome little Fox Terrier with one striking blue eye, don’t be shy.

That’s my dad.

That’s Pepper.

They’ll be honouring the woman they both loved so deeply.

And knowing them, they’d happily slow their pace so you could walk beside them.

To every single person who searched.

Who prayed.

Who shared a post.

Who made a phone call.

Who printed a poster.

Who donated.

Who walked the mountain.

Who refused to let us lose hope.

Thank you.

You didn’t just bring a dog home.

You carried a grieving family through one of the hardest chapters of our lives.

You reminded us that kindness is still alive.

That strangers can become family.

And that sometimes, when hope feels impossible to hold onto, an entire community will hold it for you until you can.

For that, we’ll be grateful for the rest of our lives.