Dog copying owner drives double-decker bus through Australian city

Phil Newton could not believe his eyes when he saw a dog driving a 20-ton, double-decker bus through Darwin's industrial zone. "I thought, 'What the ... '!" he said. "This was weird, even for the Territory." Mr Newton, 30, said the dog was sitting in the driver's seat with its paws on the steering wheel.

He chased after the runaway bus, leapt through an open window and rammed on the handbrake. "It ran for a couple of hundred meters, swerved across the road, went up on the footpath and was just about to run into a parked car when I stopped it," he said. Woodley, a two-year-old German koolie, was unrepentant.

His owner, Richard McCormack, 62, said: "He sits next to me when I'm driving and in the driver's seat when I'm not. The handbrake is on the dashboard and he's seen me release it many times.He was just copying me. He's tried it on before." Mr McCormack parked his massive mobile home in Winnellie Rd, which runs down a slight hill, and popped into a yard to inquire about repair work.

He was gone only a couple of minutes, but that was enough for Woodley to go for a spin. "I came out and saw the bus going down the road. I couldn't believe it," he said. Mr McCormack, who is fixing up his bus for a tour around Australia, said he would adjust the handbrake to stop Woodley doing a repeat performance. "He's still my best mate," he said.