5 Working Dogs Who Became Heroes

Along with two-legged workers, the police, military, and other working dogs who spend most of their lives keeping us safe should be recognized as well on Labor Day.

Many of these dogs have gone far above and beyond the line of duty to save lives. Meet just a few of these four-legged heroes.

Sgt. Stubby

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Stubby was just a stray when John Robert Conroy rescued him on a Yale University field in 1917. After Conroy smuggled him aboard a ship to France during World War I, Stubby became a working dog. He was the most decorated war dog in U.S. history and the only one promoted to sergeant.

Sgt. Stubby saved many lives by warning troops of mustard gas and crawling under barbed wire to save wounded soldiers.

Last year, Sgt. Stubby was honored with a statue in his home state of Connecticut, and the story of this amazing dog is told in the computer-animated movie Sgt. Stubby: An American Hero.

Prince

For his heroism during four tours of duty in Vietnam, a Navy SEAL dog named Prince was awarded two Purple Hearts, which are usually only given to humans.

Among this working dog’s many heroic acts were leading his patrol to a stash of hidden enemy weapons and tracking down two Viet Cong leaders hiding in tunnels.

The fate of Prince, a former police dog, wasn’t known until recently. Sadly, like so many four-legged heroes of the Vietnam War, Prince never got the retirement he deserved back home in the U.S.

Diesel

A French National Police dog, Diesel was trained to use her remarkable sense of smell to detect explosives. After the horrific attacks on Paris in November 2015, the 7-year-old Belgian Malinois was sent ahead of her human partners into an apartment where terrorists were believed to be hiding, to assess the situation.

Tragically, Diesel never made it out alive. She was shot and killed by the terrorists, and mourned by animal lovers around the world.

For her bravery, Diesel was posthumously awarded the Dickin Medal, which is the animal equivalent of the Victoria Cross.

Riley

Riley’s rambunctious personality didn’t jive with the family who’d rescued him as a puppy in 2008, so he was surrendered to a rescue group.

Ten years later, Riley was one of several search-and-rescue dogs who helped save lives by locating victims of the devastating January 2018 mudslide in Montecito, Calif.

Dexter


Along with his handler, Officer Dave Winans of the San Diego Police Department, a 3-year-old Belgian Malinois named Dexter has countless arrests under his collar.

While responding to a 911 call in February 2018, Dexter was stabbed several times by a suspect with a knife. The suspect was apprehended and charged with several crimes, including felony assault of a police dog. Fortunately, after emergency surgery, Dexter fully recovered and is back on the job.

Because of the sacrifice Dexter made to save his fellow officers, this hero dog was a recipient of the 2018 AKC Paw of Courage award.

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

This story was originally published on Care2.com.

Maine Firefighters Rescue Blind and Deaf Dog Swept Away in Stream

The owners of one particular blind and deaf terrier might want to consider renaming him “Lucky.”

Somehow the small dog — hey, I’m just going to go ahead and call him Lucky — ended up in the Messalonskee Stream in Waterford, Maine, on Sunday. He was swept downstream and then became trapped on a small bank near a bridge.

Lucky lived to bark the story thanks to a good Samaritan who saw the dog and called the Waterville Fire Department (WFD), which quickly arrived to rescue him.

“WFD proudly serves our residents, but sometimes even our pets will find themselves in a bind,” the department wrote on its Facebook page yesterday.

The WFD’s special operations team shut down the road over the bridge and went to work. Lt. Ryan Cote was able to reach the bank by using a ladder extended from the bridge. The castaway was “wet, blind and deaf,” according to the Facebook post.

Photos that accompany the post show Cote ascending the ladder with Lucky tucked on his arm, and Lt. Steve Francoeur helping him get the dog over the bridge railing.

“Once the dog was safe, the crews made numerous phone calls and a short time later located the owner,” the Facebook post reports. “Great work by all involved here.” Absolutely!

Photo: Waterville Fire – Rescue/Facebook

Florida Woman Arrested for Putting Unwanted Dog in the Trunk of Her Car

Earlier this week, Sara Perry of Cocoa, Fla., decided she no longer wanted Neptune, the Pit Bull mix she’d been neglecting. Did she do the right thing and try to find the emaciated dog a new, loving forever home?

Nope. Perry brought Neptune to a local animal shelter and told the staff to take him or euthanize him. An employee told her the shelter was full and they don’t euthanize unwanted dogs dumped there. Perry got angry and stormed off with Neptune. She took him back to her car, put him in the trunk — and drove off.

Fortunately, her heinous act was captured on video by a concerned witness. The shelter was able to see her license plate number in the video and contacted the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office.

Thanks to that witness’s video, authorities were able to locate Perry and Neptune. Sheriff Wayne Ivey said Neptune was taken to the Brevard County Animal Care Center. A veterinarian who examined Neptune said the dog was extremely malnourished and in very poor health.

Perry was arrested and charged with felony animal abuse “for the despicable way she treated this poor, helpless pet,” Ivey said. “I’m even more proud to share with you that I personally walked Perry into the Brevard County jail, which is exactly where she belongs.” Here, here, Sheriff Ivey!

The Brevard County Sheriff’s Office is working with Florida’s state attorney “to ensure Perry gets everything she deserves, to the full extent of the law,” Ivey said.

“If you harm an animal in Brevard County, we’ll put your butt straight in jail and do everything legally possible to make your life just as miserable as you made that pet’s life,” he added.

To reiterate, “HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU THAT IF YOU ABUSE AN ANIMAL IN BREVARD COUNTY YOU’RE GOING STRAIGHT TO JAIL,” the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office wrote in a Facebook post with the video. It has gone viral, with over 1.3 million views.

“Bitch” is a term used for female dogs, and it also certainly applies to Sara Perry. Here’s hoping she gets the book thrown at her. As Ivey said, someone with zero compassion “shouldn’t be allowed to own a plant, much less a pet.” And here’s hoping poor Neptune recovers and is adopted into the loving home he deserves.

On the disturbing subject of dogs in trunks, here’s a sad-but-true fact: In California, it’s legal to drive with your dog in the trunk of your car. In December 2015 a driver in Los Angeles was shocked to see two Huskies poke their heads out of the partially open trunk of the car in front of him.

The driver, who told a local news station she was only driving a short distance, was apparently not breaking any laws. California vehicle code 23117 simply requires that any animal that’s transported on highways in the back of a vehicle “in a space intended for any load” (the trunk or bed of a truck, for instance) to be “either cross-tethered to the vehicle or protected by a secured container or cage, to prevent the animal from falling, jumping, or being thrown from the vehicle.” The woman had tied a bungee cord to the trunk door to prevent it from opening all the way.

The ASPCA and the LAPD Animal Cruelty Task Force investigated the incident. Believe it or not, the woman wasn’t charged with animal cruelty or endangerment. Still, all you dog owners in California, there are much safer ways to transport your pet…inside your vehicle.

Photos: Brevard Sheriff/YouTube

News Reporter Rescues Dog Stolen from Restaurant

Stopping for lunch near Houston on their way home from a road trip last weekend, Andrew Mathias and his family tied their 4-year-old Golden Retriever, Lucy, to a tree in the restaurant’s parking lot. They assumed she’d be safe and cool in this shady spot.

They were sadly mistaken. When they left the restaurant, Lucy was gone. A surveillance camera captured footage of a woman untying Lucy, taking her to a truck and then driving away.

After viewing the footage, Matt Dougherty, a reporter with CBS affiliate station KHOU in Houston, decided to do his best to find Lucy.

Fortunately, the truck’s license plate was visible in the footage. Dougherty was able to get the truck owner’s address and, accompanied by a KHOU news crew, went to her home in New Caney, Texas.

There were a lot of dogs on the property. When Dougherty asked the man who answered the door if there was a woman there “who collects dogs,” the man said she was his cousin.

Dougherty and the news crew took Lucy and contacted authorities. The reporter also made a FaceTime video phone call to Mathias.

“Well, I don’t want to bury the lead — I’ll go ahead and let you know,” Dougherty told him. “We’ve got somebody in the back seat with us.” Mathias and his family were thrilled when they saw it was Lucy.

Later, as Polk County Pct. 2 Constable Bill Cunningham watched, Lucy was reunited with her overjoyed family.

Mathias told KHOU he’ll never leave Lucy unattended in public again.

Perhaps the dognapper’s heart was in the right place: She thought Lucy had been abandoned outside the restaurant, her two children who were inside the truck at the time told KHOU in a follow-up story.

Lucy “was looking confused,” a 13-year-old boy told KHOU. There was “a lot of saliva coming out of her mouth, so we thought oh, she’s super thirsty.” (The Mathias family said they had left a bowl filled with water next to their dog.)

The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office is investigating the case. The woman and her children hope the Mathias family will forgive them. “We’re so sorry if you guys thought that we stole it,” the boy told KHOU. “We didn’t do it for bad intentions. We did it for a good cause, because we thought it was abandoned.”

Here’s some advice for this woman and anyone else who sees a dog in a similar situation: It’s a good idea to check inside the restaurant first to see if the owner is there before taking any action.

Photos: KHOU 11/YouTube

Former Shelter Dog Stars in Live-Action ‘Lady and the Tramp’

The good news: Disney has made a live-action version of its 1955 animated classic, “Lady and the Tramp” (affiliate link) that features a cast of rescue dogs.

The even better news: The highly coveted role of Tramp isn’t played by some fancy, purebred dog. The part went to a 2-year-old former shelter dog named Monte.

Somehow last year this adorably scruffy Terrier mix ended up in the Animal Services Center of the Mesilla Valley (ASCMV), a kill shelter in Las Cruces, N.M. ASCMV is an extremely high-intake shelter. According to its website, it received nearly 10,000 animals in 2016. The nonprofit HALO Animal Rescue partners with ASCMV and helps save lives by taking in plenty of the shelter’s overflow homeless pets.

ASCMV typically sends HALO about 50 dogs at a time. “Monte was a part of that lucky load on April 26, 2018,” HALO President and CEO Heather Allen told the Las Cruces Sun News.

Fortunately, Monte wasn’t homeless for long. Allen said the ASCMV shelter noted that he was “super friendly, greets people right away, gives kisses, loves attention, he knows how to sit, and walks well on a leash.” Along with all of those excellent qualities, he happens to have another special attribute. Monte has a strong resemblance to the animated version of Tramp, which is why he caught the eye of animal trainer Mark Forbes.

Monte was adopted and trained him for the role. But he’s not just a movie star — he’s a regular pet. “They send us photos of him from home,” Allen told the Sun News. “He has a great family.”

Monte won’t be doing his own barking in “Lady and the Tramp.” His voice will be provided by actor Justin Theroux, who in real life is the dog dad of Kuma, a Pit Bull who was rescued during Hurricane Harvey. A Cocker Spaniel named Rose is playing Lady, with her voice provided by Tessa Thomson. The voice cast also includes Janelle Monáe as Peg, Sam Elliott as Trusty the Bloodhound, Benedict Wong as Bull and Ashley Jensen as Jock.

Monte isn’t the first and hopefully won’t be the last shelter dog to find a loving home…and fame. Among these lucky pups is Bowdie, a Poodle mix rescued by animal trainers Bill and Dorothy Berloni. Bowdie pretty much stole the show as Nana in “Peter Pan Live” when it aired on NBC in December 2014. Even more impressive was the fact that it was the first time in a production of this musical that Nana was played by a real dog, not an actor in a dog costume.

Monte is the first dog taken in by HALO Animal Rescue to make it big.

“In 25 years of helping animals move on, we haven’t had a movie star,” Erin Denmark, the organization’s outreach manager, told 3TV/CBS5. “So we’re getting goosebumps constantly when we hear the phone ring and people wanting to hear more about Monte and his life in Hollywood.”

The live-action “Lady and the Tramp” debuts Nov. 12 exclusively on the new Disney+ streaming service.

Nov. 11, 2019 Update: Yvette Nicole Brown has adopted one of her “Lady and the Tramp” co-stars, “doggie double” Mister Harley Brown, People reports. Mister Harley Brown has an Instagram account that currently has almost 3,000 followers.

Photo: azfamily powered by 3TV & CBS5AZ/YouTube

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