Category: Awww

Tissue (Box) Alert! Man Reunited with Dog After 2 Years Apart

In 2014, a Wisconsin man named Jose went through some tough times. After a divorce, he lost his house and was living in his car with Chaos, the dog he’d had since he was a puppy.

“Chaos helped me through so much in my life,” Jose said, according to the Winnebago County Animal Services Facebook page. “I took him everywhere with me.”

To improve his dog’s life — Chaos got his name from being big and full of energy — a friend of a friend took Chaos in until Jose could find a better living situation.

But when Jose was ready to reclaim Chaos three months later, the friend’s friend refused to give him the dog. Jose didn’t think he would ever see his beloved Chaos again.

Fast forward two years. On April 27, an employee of Winnebago County Animal Services found a stray dog on her driveway. He was brought to the shelter and checked for a microchip. Lo and behold, he indeed had a tag with a 2014 identification number.

Someone from the shelter called the contact phone number, and Jose answered.

“I couldn’t get to the shelter fast enough. I couldn’t wait for it to open to see Chaos,” Jose said.

Chaos was a little scared and apprehensive at first when he was reunited with his original dog dad, but after shyly approaching him and sniffing his hand, his fear quickly disappeared — as you can see in the heart-tugging video.

“I couldn’t be any happier. I feel amazing!” Jose said. After their joyous reunion, he drove Chaos home, about 90 minutes away. At first Chaos kept trying to climb into Jose’s lap. Then he settled down, and rested his head on his dog dad’s shoulder for the entire trip.

At home, Jose introduced Chaos to another dog he had adopted.

“As soon as they met, they started playing and running around, acting like they have been together since they were puppies,” Jose said.

Chaos could be a poster dog for microchipping your pets.

“Pay the microchip fee!” Jose said. “That fee versus never seeing your animal again is totally worth it.”

Photo via Facebook

Dog Detects Diabetic Girl’s Blood Sugar Drop from 5 Miles Away

A diabetes detection dog with the appropriate name of Hero can sense when the blood sugar level of 4-year-old Sadie is dangerously low or high.

If it’s too low, the Labrador Retriever whines, and nudges or paws Sadie’s parents’ left hands. If it’s too high, he does the same to their right hands.

One day last December, Hero started pawing the left hand of Sadie’s mom, Michelle. But at the time, Sadie, who has Type 1 diabetes and Down syndrome, was attending a special-needs class at an elementary school five miles away from their home in Pleasant Grove, Utah.

“He’s normally a very quiet dog,” Michelle told KUTV. “Whining is not in his protocol. But he just started whining and he would not stop.”

Michelle called the school and was told Sadie was fine. But within half an hour, the girl’s blood sugar level plummeted.

“The lows are more dangerous immediately,” Michelle told KUTV. “(With) lows, she could go into a diabetic coma right away, and she could die, if we kept her low too long.”

Caroline Knadler, the school principal, told KUTV Hero’s long-distance detection blew her mind. Knadler, who also has Type 1 diabetes, said Hero once detected her own blood sugar level drop during a parent-teacher meeting.

KC Owens, owner of Tattle Tale Scent Dogs in Utah, where dogs like Hero are trained to be diabetic alert dogs, told KUTV these dogs can use their hundreds of millions of scent receptors to pick up odors from a mile or two away. But five miles?

It might not have been Hero’s amazing sense of smell that let him know something was wrong with Sadie.

“How do dogs know when their owners are coming home?” Owens asked. “There’s another piece of it that I call, ‘God only knows.'”

Michelle told KUTV she thought it was something similar to a mother’s intuition. “These dogs have abilities and senses beyond our understanding,” she said.

On the Sadie’s Hero Facebook page, Michelle wrote that she didn’t want to give the impression that all diabetic alert dogs can detect from miles away as Hero seemed to do.

“They don’t,” she wrote, adding that many of Owens’ teams “have experienced this too many times to be coincidence, but it doesn’t happen with every low or with every dog. So while we can’t and won’t even try to explain how this happens, we feel blessed. Even without the long-distance alerts, he is amazing.”

Sadie’s dad told KUTV, “I’ve always called Sadie our little angel, and I think Hero was a little angel sent into our lives to watch over her.”

Photo via Facebook

Watch This CHP ‘High-Speed’ Pursuit…of a Chihuahua

APRIL 8, 2016 UPDATE: No one claimed Ponch, so he is now in a foster home and will be available for adoption soon. Stay tuned for details!

California Highway Patrol officers in San Francisco became involved in a chase this morning on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.

But it wasn’t someone in a vehicle the CHPs were after. It was a little Chihuahua running at full speed across the bridge. The dash cam on a patrol car captured the exciting pursuit.

“High speed pursuit of [dog] this morning on the #BayBridge!” CHP San Francisco tweeted. “Suspect taken into custody. All are safe! #onlyinSF.”

Someone on Twitter asked if the Chihuahua got a ticket. “No, we just gave him a verbal warning,” CHP San Francisco responded. “It went something like this, ‘Woof, woof, WOOF!'”

The black Chihuahua was “jailed” at San Francisco Animal Care & Control, where he’s been named Ponch after the Erik Estrada character on the TV classic, “CHPs.”

His owners are asked to come bail him out.

“The little Bay Bridge dog is resting comfortably after his exciting morning and high-speed chase,” tweeted SF Animal Care this afternoon. “Thank you, CHP.”

Photos via Twitter

5 Weeks Later, Dog Lost at Sea Rescued from Island

As Nick Haworth pulled in lobster traps on a boat off the coast of San Diego last month, his 1-year-old German Shepherd/Husky mix, Luna, jumped into the water and disappeared.

Haworth and others on board “looked everywhere for her,” Sandy DeMunnik, spokeswoman for Naval Base Coronado, told the Associated Press. “They couldn’t see her. The water was dark, and she’s dark.”

Along with Navy personnel, Haworth continued searching the water for Luna for two days, with no luck. Still, Haworth refused to give up hope that Luna had managed to swim 2 miles to nearby San Clemente Island. Navy personnel searched the island for a week by land and air, but there was no sign of Luna.

“She blended right in,” Navy wildlife biologist Melissa Booker told the San Diego Union-Tribune.

Ten days after Luna disappeared, Haworth finally gave up hope. “RIP Luna,” he wrote on his Facebook page Feb. 20.

But Tuesday morning, five weeks after she went overboard, Navy personnel found Luna sitting by the side of a road on San Clemente Island. (The island, owned by the Navy and not open to civilians or pets, is used as a training base.)

“She was just sitting there, wagging her tail,” DeMunnik told the AP.

The crew members “literally opened up the car door, whistled and she jumped right in,” Booker told the San Diego Union-Tribune.

Although she had lost some weight, Luna was otherwise healthy and uninjured. She apparently survived on a diet of rodents and dead fish that had washed up on shore.

When the Navy called Haworth with the good news about Luna, he was “so happy and grateful and thrilled,” DeMunnik told the AP.

Along with the weight, Luna lost her ID tag. The Navy gave her a new one, inscribed with “For Luna, Keep the Faith” — an important lesson taught to Navy and Marine personnel in the island’s Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) course.

Haworth has been working out of state, but will be reunited with Luna this afternoon. Stay tuned for an update on what’s sure to be a tissue-box-worthy event.

“Beyond stoked to have Luna back,” Haworth wrote on his Facebook page yesterday. “I always knew she was a warrior.”

UPDATE:

“I’m just glad to have her home,” Haworth told the Associated Press after he was reunited with Luna tonight. “I never thought I’d see her again, to be honest with you.”

Haworth said Luna will join him again on the fishing boat soon, but some changes will be made.

“We got to keep a better eye on her, keep her on a leash on the boat, maybe even a doggy life jacket,” he told the AP.

Photo via YouTube

Tissue Alert! Watch a Senior Golden Retriever Reunite with Her Soldier Dog Mom

There’s nothing quite as touching as videos of soldiers reuniting with the beloved dogs they had to leave at home — especially when the dog is a senior who had never before been separated from her pet parent.

That was the case for a 13-year-old, arthritic and partially deaf Golden Retriever named Buddy. Her dog mom, 21-year-old Hannah Foraker, had Buddy ever since she was a puppy, and had never been away from her home in Cleveland when she joined the Army last year.

After a three-month separation, Foraker was able to return home for two weeks at Christmastime. A video of her reunion with Buddy she posted on YouTube in late February is now going viral.

“Buddy came running, as best as she could, out of the house and said hello to everyone,” Foraker told FOX 8. “At first she didn’t even realize I was there, but she did a double take and came bounding over to me, whining nonstop in pure glee.”

While Foraker was away at Fort Sam Houston in Texas, she tried to communicate with Buddy using Skype.

“She doesn’t understand that her mommy is on the other side of the screen, but she can hear me (with the volume all the way up) and always perks her ears and starts wagging her tail,” Foraker told FOX 8.

Foraker said Buddy never left her side during her visit in December. She just wishes she’d taken more photos.

“I’ve just recently been informed that I won’t be able to go home again until next Christmas,” she told FOX 8. “A lot can happen in a year, but Buddy is a fighter.”

Here’s hoping their reunion next December will result in another viral video.

Grab a tissue — heck, grab the whole box — and enjoy Buddy and Foraker’s happy reunion.

Photo via YouTube

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