During rush hour Tuesday afternoon, a German Shepherd mix wandered in and out of traffic on a busy freeway in Tempe, Ariz. Some drivers stopped and attempted to lure the stray dog to them, to no avail.
As they watched this dangerous situation unfold in a live stream on the azfamily 3TV CBS 5 Facebook page, Kim and Andrew Vander Stoep decided to do something about it. They grabbed a leash, water and dog treats, then got in their truck and drove to the freeway.
Kim, who works at an animal hospital, walked across the Elliot Road off-ramp and was able to get the leash on the dog as he was distracted by other good Samaritans who’d stopped to help. While waiting for Andrew to arrive in the truck, she gave the dog water and treats.
The Vander Stoeps took the dog to the animal hospital where Kim works to see if he had a microchip. He did, but the contact person said the dog wasn’t his.
This lucky dog, who’s been named Elliot after the off-ramp where Kim saved him, has a new forever home — with his rescuers.
“We’ve got four dogs at home. We’re dog people,” Andrew told azfamily.com. “Our house is set up for dogs.” The couple had been planning to adopt a Pit Bull with three legs due to cancer, but will put that on hold until Elliot settles in to his new digs.
“He’s safe now and that’s all that matters,” Kim told azfamily.com.
A toy Poodle named Pickles may have weighed only 5 pounds, but he wasn’t afraid to stand up to a bear weighing 150 to 200 pounds that entered his home in Black Mountain, N.C., early Friday morning.
“I thought I was gonna die,” Tiffany Merrill, Pickles’ owner, told WNCT. She had opened a door to let her little dog out for his morning walk when the aggressive intruder walked inside the house.
Merrill’s two children were asleep in their bedrooms. She knew that if she ran to them, the bear would chase after her and perhaps kill them all. So, yelling to her kids to close their doors, she tried to hide behind a couch — but the bear jumped on the couch.
As Merrill envisioned the bear killing her and then her children, she heard Pickles barking. Her dog was able to chase the bear outside. As Merrill watched in horror, Pickles and the bear got into a scuffle.
“There was nothing I could do,” Merrill told WLOS. “I wanted to go out there and jump on the back of the bear and save my dog.”
Amazingly, Pickles initially survived his attack by the bear nearly 40 times his size, but the hero dog died after Merrill rushed him to a veterinarian. “He did not make it — he died saving my life,” Merrill wrote on Facebook.
Pickles had been a member of the Merrill family for four years. “He was always with me,” Merrill told WNCT. “If I stayed up late, he stayed up late. If I wanted to go somewhere, he wanted to go somewhere.”
Merrill hopes her dog’s tragic death will make her neighbors more aware of bears and encourage them to take precautions to protect all their family members.
How to Protect Your Family from Bears
Education specialist Lauren Pyle with the Western North Carolina Nature Center told WLOS there’s been a lot of bear activity in the area, which is expected to increase even more as the weather cools and these animals prepare for hibernation.
Pyle said she doesn’t know for sure why the bear entered Merrill’s house, but she said these incidents usually happen when bears become too accustomed to people. “They’re definitely going to be hungry now,” she told WLOS. “They’re definitely opportunists when it comes to finding food, so they will go after whatever is easiest.”
If there are bears near where you live, Pyle offers these tips:
Never approach a bear.
Keep your property as clean as possible. “Like the trash being left overnight or unsecured, or bird feeders, or outside pet food storage, or even just BBQ grills that are left out with all that juicy, meaty goodness all over it,” she told WLOS.
Remember that bears are actually afraid of people. If they do start running, it doesn’t mean they’ll want to run right up to you.
“Y’all, this is a miracle,” Karen Smith told reporters last night. She was referring to the 31-hour effort it took to save Toffee, the ridiculously cute, deaf puppy she’s fostering, from a 50-foot-deep hole.
Toffee had been playing in Smith’s yard in Huntsville, Ala., around 5 p.m. Thursday when the 7-week-old Australian Shepherd suddenly disappeared into the rocky crevice, which was only a few inches wide.
Smith contacted A New Leash on Life, from which she was fostering Toffee and her littermates. The rescue organization immediately coordinated the efforts to save the puppy’s life.
It took a village to raise this puppy — namely, firefighters, cave rescue crews, plumbers and other volunteers. The team made several attempts to rescue Toffee. At one point Friday afternoon, the puppy put her front two paws into a net, but not her entire body, so she couldn’t be lifted out.
The rescue crew provided Toffee with food and water as they tried to free her. They kept a constant eye on her with a camera that had been lowered into the hole.
Their efforts were live-streamed by local TV stations. People watching from across the country volunteered to come to Huntsville and try to help.
Finally, just after midnight last night, the rescuers successfully saved Toffee. What did the trick? Luring her into a net with sardines, and then raising the net.
Despite that long fall, Toffee suffered no serious injuries.
“Our volunteers and friends are sleeping well tonight knowing she is safe and experiencing what an amazing community we have!” A New Leash on Life wrote on Instagram.
Click here to make a donation to A New Leash on Life.
On June 3, one of the rare nights that Nana Chaichanhda let Sasha, her 8-month-old Pit Bull, sleep outside their Stockton, Calif., home, she was awakened by Sasha frantically scratching at the back door to get inside.
“I heard a loud bang and I was like, ‘What’s going on?’ And I heard Sasha crying, and she kept jumping at the door,” Chaichanhda told KCRA. “As soon as I got to the door, she runs in and starts barking.”
As Chaichanhda looked outside to see what could be spooking Sasha, she saw that her neighbor’s house was on fire — and the flames were spreading to her own house in the fourplex where she lives. Chaichanhda’s 7-month-old daughter, Masailah, was taking a nap in a back bedroom at the time.
Sasha ran straight to Masailah’s room, with Chaichanhda right behind her.
“She had already had my baby by the diaper and was dragging her off the bed,” Chaichanhda told FOX40. “I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, what are you doing?'”
Chaichanhda, Masailah and Sasha all made it safely out of the house, thanks to the hero Pit Bull.
“I owe her everything,” Chaichanhda told FOX40. “If it wasn’t for her, I would have still been in bed and things could have taken a worse turn.”
The family is temporarily staying with a family member. A GoFundMe campaign has been started to help them recover.
Chaichanhda said she hopes Sasha’s heroic actions will help change some people’s negative views of Pit Bulls. Many thanks to KCRA, FOX40 and other news outlets for sharing this Pit Bull positive story!
Over a century after he bravely served in World War I, Sgt. Stubby, the most decorated war dog in U.S. history and the only one to be promoted to sergeant, is finally being honored with a monument.
The life-size bronze sculpture “Stubby Salutes” was unveiled over Memorial Day weekend in Veterans Memorial Park in Middleton, Conn. — Stubby’s home state.
Stubby, who is believed to have been a Boston Terrier/Pit Bull mix, was rescued in 1917 when John Robert Conroy, a soldier training for World War I combat, saw the stray dog on a field at Yale University. When Conroy’s unit was shipped off to France, he wrapped Stubby in an overcoat and smuggled him aboard. Conroy taught the dog to salute his commanding officer, which was so endearing that the officer allowed Stubby to stay.
Stubby became the “unofficial official mascot” of the 102nd Infantry, 26th (Yankee) Division. As he recuperated after being hit in the leg by a grenade, he kept other injured soldiers company and helped lift their spirits.
After his leg healed, he returned to the trenches and survived being sprayed with mustard gas. He was able to use his sense of smell and what he learned from this experience to help warn his fellow soldiers of impending gas attacks, and saved many lives. His excellent hearing allowed him to detect the whine of artillery before the soldiers could. He’d bark to warn them to take cover, saving even more lives.
Among his other heroic deeds were capturing a German spy by the seat of his pants, and allegedly preventing a little girl from getting hit by a car in Paris.
After he died in 1926, Stubby was stuffed and his body is on display in the exhibit “The Price of Freedom” at the Smithsonian Institution. Last month, the animated movie “Sgt. Stubby: An American Hero,” which told the story about this amazing dog, premiered in theaters.
For decades, members of Conroy’s family have been trying to create a memorial for the hero dog. “Stubby Salutes,” a fitting tribute, was sculpted by artist Susan Barary. She’s known about Stubby for 25 years and has wanted to create a sculpture of him for a long time, the Hartford Courant reports. She said she’s inspired by the bond between people and animals, as well as the love between Stubby and his fellow soldiers.
A plaque on the statue’s pedestal says Stubby is “America’s First Dog of Service” and served with his friends “in their battles, hardships, sorrows and joys. He was a morale booster.”
The $80,000 statue was paid with donations, including $30,000 from the nonprofit U.S. War Dog Association, which honors U.S. military dogs and their handlers. Conroy’s family hopes that interest in Stubby will raise awareness and support of organizations that train service dogs for veterans. You can find out more at sergeantstubbysalutes.org.
Barary’s statue “nailed it,” Conroy’s grandson, Curt Deane, told the Hartford Courant. “I couldn’t be happier.”
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