Category: Heroes

Senior Blind Dog Rescued from 15-Foot Deep Hole

Although a 13-year-old dog named Cesar who lives in Pasadena, Calif., is blind, he managed to find an opening in his backyard fence last night and escaped from the yard. Unfortunately, he wandered onto the construction site next door — and plunged 15 feet down a hole.

Cesar’s owner, Mary, knew something was wrong when her other dog started barking frantically. When Cesar barked back, Mary realized he wasn’t in the backyard. She found him down in the hole, which was only about 3 feet wide, and alerted the construction foreman. They notified the Pasadena Fire Department, and a search-and-rescue team arrived within 10 minutes. Rescue personnel from four other nearby cities also came to help.

Getting Cesar out of the deep and narrow hole was no easy task. “This is a construction zone,” Pasadena Fire Chief Chad Augustin told ABC7 Eyewitness News. “Confined space rescues are low-frequency, high-risk. There are a lot of steps we need to do to make it as safe as possible, for not just the dog but also our rescuers.”

The rescue effort was captured on video. Using ropes and pulleys, one of the rescuers was lowered into the hole. He attached a harness to Cesar and, about 13 minutes after the rescue effort began, they both emerged. Although Cesar cried while he was stuck in the hole, it’s pretty amazing that he wasn’t seriously injured.

The rescuers posed for a photo with Cesar. Saving the lives of pets “always makes us feel good,” Augustin told ABC7 Eyewitness News. “At the end of the day, all of us are pet lovers. I have a dog of my own. We want to make sure we take care of not just our residents, but also our furry friends.” Sweet!

Cesar “is an old dog,” Mary, who didn’t want to give her last name, told ABC7 Eyewitness News. “But he’s still very curious and adventurous.” Hopefully after this misadventure, Cesar will stick to wandering only around his own yard.

Photo: Pasadena Fire Department

Hero Pit Bull/Chihuahua Mix Loses Life Protecting Kids from Mountain Lion

Lady, a small Pit Bull/Chihuahua (wow!) mix, liked to keep a protective eye on the kids in the Havens family of Idaho Springs, Colo. 

When the Havens family adopted Lady three years ago, they knew right away she was something special, Virginia Havens, Lady’s owner, told CBS4.

“Any time the kids were outside, she was five steps behind them,” Havens told CBS4. “They would play in the sandbox, she was keeping watch everywhere, all the time.”

Lady was doing what she always does on June 14 when a 6-foot mountain lion began stalking the children as they played in their front yard. When Lady saw the big cat, Havens said the hero dog first took off in the other direction to gain momentum before springing on it.

As Havens’ husband grabbed the kids and brought them inside the house, the mountain lion clamped its jaws around Lady’s head. Lady “was doing her best to get out of the hold,” Havens told CBS4. “I heard her crying out, which made me more frantic because she was my fur baby,”

Havens called the police. When they arrived, they shot the mountain lion with non-lethal rounds, The mountain lion dropped Lady and took off.

Havens said she screamed when she saw Lady’s injuries. “She was just a bloody mess,” Havens told CBS4. “Her eye was bulging, she had labored breathing and a hole in her skull.”

Although Lady was rushed to an animal hospital, she sadly had to be euthanized due to her severe injuries. But thanks to Lady’s bravery, the Havens children were unharmed.

“If she had not been there, we would have had a completely different type of tragedy,” Havens told CBS4. “She was absolutely our hero.”

Photo: Olivia Danielle Ruiz, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

30 Women Created the First US Animal Shelter

Did you know that way back in 1869, a group of 30 women created the very first animal shelter in the United States?

The Women’s Animal Center has changed its name over the years, from the Women’s Branch of the Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals to the Women’s Humane Society to the Women’s Animal Center, as it’s called today. It has also moved from its original location in Philadelphia to a larger, modern facility in Bensalem, Penn., about 18 miles north.

Back in the 1860s, the women, led by animal activist Caroline Earle White (who later founded the American Anti-Vivisection Society), were inspired to open a humane shelter in Philadelphia to save stray dogs and cats that were taken to the city pound and then languished there. Some of the pound dogs were subjected to cruel medical experiments by doctors.

Two years before the animal shelter opened, White joined with other women to found and raise funds for the Pennsylvania SPCA. Yet because they were women, they weren’t allowed to be on the board of directors of the humane society they themselves created!

Instead of being discouraged, the women went ahead and formed their own humane society, which they named the Women’s Branch of the Pennsylvania SPCA. (“Branch” is misleading, since this group was autonomous and completely independent from the Pennsylvania SPCA.)

Fifty years before women won the right to vote, these compassionate and visionary ladies took over the city pound. They banned doctors from access to the animals. And, for the first time in the U.S., homeless dogs and cats were adopted into loving homes. The women also established one of the first humane education programs in the country and promoted the importance of reporting animal abuse.

“Although living during an era that limited her own rights, White used what voice she had to speak on behalf of the voiceless,” the Women’s Animal Center notes in a Facebook post. “The power of her message continues to be told today through the daily work of more than 3,500 animal shelters in operation across the country.”

To find out more about the Women’s Animal Center and how to help it to continue caring for animals, visit its website.

Photo: Women’s Animal Center/YouTube

Happy Hundredth Birthday in Heaven to Betty White!

If she hadn’t left this world on New Year’s Eve, Betty White had big plans for her big 1-0-0 on January 17.

First, she would’ve had lunch with her heartthrob, Robert Redford, she joked to Parade. And then, not at all surprisingly, she would “spend it with as many animals as I can round up.”

When she turned 99 last year, White told PEOPLE that what kept her going was her sense of humor. “Don’t take yourself too seriously,” she said.  “You can lie to others — not that I would — but you cannot lie to yourself.” According to other sources, White enjoyed a diet consisting pretty much of vodka and naked hot dogs (just a weiner and bun, no condiments). Gotta love that Betty!

Unlike her 93rd birthday celebration, when she was entertained by a flash mob, White had to spend her final birthday on Earth in quarantine last year. “Running a mile each morning has been curtailed by COVID,” she told Entertainment Tonight. She also said she would be “feeding the two ducks who come to visit me every day.” (Lucky ducks.)

To honor White’s memory, the #BettyWhiteChallenge is asking everyone to donate $5 or more to an animal rescue or shelter. How she would have loved this idea!

There are well over 100 reasons to love Betty White and her positivity. Due to space limitations, here are just five of them.

5. Through the Morris Foundation, which she’d been involved with for more than 40 years, White sponsored animal health studies that resulted in major breakthroughs in animal pain management; information on genetic mutations that cause bone cancer in dogs; and using ultrasound to manage canine congestive heart failure.

4. To promote her “Off Their Rockers” show on NBC in 2013, White rode a wrecking ball in a parody of the Miley Cyrus video. Can’t wait to see Cyrus try this when she’s 92!

3. After losing her dog Kita to canine cancer, White promoted a fundraising 2011 photo contest to help eradicate this disease. More than $500,000 was raised for the Canine Cancer Campaign, for which she was the spokeswoman.

2. White was the oldest guest host ever of “Saturday Night Live” — and she got the May 2010 gig thanks to a Facebook campaign supported by more than 500,000 fans.

1. White was an animal lover and advocate for nearly 10 decades. Ten decades. “My parents (who took in stray animals) were in the animal business, and I’ve been loving animals and appreciating what they have to teach us my entire life,” she told Steve Dale’s Pet World in 2013. “The consciousness about animals has risen. They’re a part of our families.”

On New Year’s Day, the hashtag #BeLikeBetty went viral on social media. If everyone made this their New Year’s resolution, imagine what a better place this world would be.

Rest in peace, lovely lady.

PHOTO: Betty at the 1988 Emmy Awards. Alan Light/Wikimedia

The ‘Betty White Challenge’ Honors this Amazing Woman

Millions of hearts were broken on New Year’s Eve with the sad news that the lovely and amazing Betty White had left us.

As a way to honor the lifelong animal lover, the #BettyWhiteChallenge asks everyone to donate $5 to their local animal shelter or rescue on January 17, which would have been White’s 100th birthday. (If you can afford to, it would be extra special to donate $100.)

You know that somewhere out there, White is thrilled about this.

I’ll be donating to spcaLA. White was a longtime supporter of this Los Angeles nonprofit and a friend of its president, Madeline Bernstein. On a personal note, my very first dog was a German Shepherd mix adopted from spcaLA. A couple of decades later, I adopted an amazing Pit Bull named Sophie from the same shelter.

If there isn’t an animal shelter or rescue in your area, you might want to consider donating to one of the following organizations that White supported:

  • The Morris Foundation, with which White was involved for over 40 years. This nonprofit works “to improve and protect the health of animals through scientific innovation, education and inspiration,” according to its website. White sponsored its animal health studies that resulted in major breakthroughs in pain management; information on genetic mutations that cause bone cancer in dogs; and using ultrasound to manage canine congestive heart failure.
  • The Seeing Eye, whose mission is to “enhance the independence, dignity and self-confidence of people who are blind, through the use of specially trained Seeing Eye® dogs.” White was involved with this nonprofit for over four decades.

What animal shelter or rescue will you be donating to? Please leave a comment (and a link!) below.

Happy Heavenly Birthday, Betty White!

Photo: @RexChapman/Twitter

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