Hero dog saves life of freezing owner who broke his neck in fall
A dog has been hailed as a hero for helping to save the life of a man who slipped in the snow and broke his neck.
The man, only known as Bob, went outside his Michigan home to get a log for the fire on New Year’s Eve when he slipped and broke his neck.
Wearing just his long johns, slippers, and a shirt, he lay paralysed in the snow and unable to move before his Golden Retriever, Kelsey, came to his assistance.
“I was screaming for help but my nearest neighbour is about a quarter mile away and it was 10:30 pm, but my Kelsey came,” he explained.
“By morning my voice was gone and I couldn’t yell for help, but Kelsey didn’t stop barking.”
Bob’s canine companion kept him warm by laying on top of him and licking his face and hands to keep him awake.
“She kept barking for help but never left my side,” he added. “She kept me warm and alert. I knew I had to persevere through this and that it was my choice to stay alive.”
He spent 19 hours in the freezing cold outside, but when he finally lost consciousness his dog kept barking.
“She was letting out this screeching howl that alerted my neighbour. He found me at 6:30pm on New Year’s Day.
“I was surprised to find out that I didn’t have any frost bite. I am sure it was because of Kelsey’s determination to keep me warm and safe.”
This story was reposted from The Telegraph
Meet The Heroic Dog Who Fought Off Coyotes To Protect Boy After Car Crash
Sako, a 4-year-old king shepherd from Kanaka Bar, British Columbia, was inducted into the Purina Animal Hall of Fame on Monday for his efforts to protect Joseph Phillips-Garcia. The Toronto event, sponsored by Nestle Purina Petcare subsidiary Purina Canada, honored Canadian domestic animals whose actions have saved human lives.
In June 2014, Phillips-Garcia, then 16, went out with his aunt, cousin, friend and Sako for a day of fishing and wild potato picking, according to a Purina news release. On the way home, their car went off the road and down a steep hill more than 100 yards into the forest.
Phillips-Garcia and Sako, the only two survivors of the crash, were thrown from the vehicle. The teen blacked out and could barely move when he awoke.
“I tried moving in any possible way I could. I felt my head and I looked down at my hand, and it was just filled with blood,” Phillips-Garcia recalled in a video released by Purina. The teen said a bone was jutting out of his leg. Doctors would later determine he had a broken collar bone and a broken femur.
Sako, who had lived with Phillips-Garcia’s family since he was a puppy, did not leave the boy’s side, cuddling close to keep him warm through the night.
Constable Kris Clark of the Lake Country Royal Canadian Mounted Police notes in the video that maintaining body temperature is crucial for the survival of an injured person who may be in shock.
The dog’s assistance did not end there. Phillips-Garcia says Sako helped him drag himself to a creek to get water and even fought off coyotes.
“We were just falling asleep, and that’s when you hear the first couple of howls,” the teen said. “He got up as soon as he realized their scent was coming closer and closer, and then he just went in. You could hear them just fighting and the bushes rumbling around.”
The dog stayed with Phillips-Garcia until a search team found the pair 40 hours later.
“He saved my son’s life,” the boy’s mother, Fawn Adolph, says in the video. Clark agrees that Sako played a “huge role” in the teen's survival.
This story was reposted from the Huffpost
A life for a life: By saving her, he saved himself
Ten years ago when former Senior Airman David Sharpe adopted a pit bull puppy from a rescue shelter, he thought he was saving her life. In a dramatic twist of events just a few months later, she ended up saving his.
Sharpe was on the verge of taking his life.
As he sat on the kitchen floor of his apartment with a .45 caliber handgun in his hand -- "ready to finish the fight with the demons that followed me back from the war" -- that pit bull puppy, named Cheyenne, sat down on the floor next to Sharpe and licked his ear. It made him laugh -- something he hadn't been doing much of. He said something clicked for him and his reason for living, in that moment, became clear -- to care for Cheyenne.
Sharpe had been suffering from an undiagnosed case of post-traumatic stress disorder and depression.
For the full story, you can visit the Air Force Medical Service
Hero Dog Shows Up Lassie, Uses iPhone To Call 911 And Save Owner's Life
Meet Major, a Labrador retriever pit bull mix, who spends his days with owner Terry McGlade, a U.S. Marine who suffers from PTSD and seizures after being wounded by an IED in Afghanistan.
When McGlade had a seizure earlier this month, Major, a trained rescue dog, knew exactly what to do: He called for help. Not by whining or barking, but by pawing at McGlade's iPhone.
"He was actually able to get my phone out of my pocket," McGlade recalled to Ohio's ABC6. "I don't have the phone anymore because there are teeth marks on the phone."
Major called 911 by repeatedly stepping on the phone's screen for several seconds, alerting concerned dispatchers who eventually heard McGlade having a seizure in the background. In an interview with Fox & Friends, McGlade says the dog called 911 a total of 10 times. "[The dispatchers] kept hanging up because they thought it was a prank call," he said.
With help finally on its way, Major waited in front of the house for medics to arrive, then led them to McGlade in the backyard. McGlade told Fox he didn't think he'd be alive today were it not for the dog, adding:
Before I got [Major] I was actually in a really really dark spot. I was almost one of those suicide statistics. Just because the PTSD was that severe. The organization I received him from, Stiggy's Dogs, actually rescued him from a hoarder situation, and … basically now he's an extension of me. He's brought my confidence back.
This story was reposted from the Huffpost.
We hope you liked those stories! Maybe your dog will not something as incredible as that, but he/she sure loves you just as much as those dogs loved their owners.
Now enough with the screens, go give some well-deserved love to your pup!
