Stories of Pit Bulls saving their pet parents from attacks really aren’t that unusual, although you’d never know it from the news media, which generally prefers to report only negative stories about these misunderstood dogs.
Last week, a 7-year-old stray Pit Bull in Baldwin, Ga., saved a life — not of a family member, but of a total stranger when he got between a man and the woman he was attacking. The man stopped attacking the woman, but he stabbed the Pit Bull five times.
When police officers Timothy Clay and Daniel Seely arrived at the scene, the dog was lying in a pool of blood. They rushed him to the nearest animal hospital and gave him the appropriate name “Hero.”
“I don’t think we could have let that dog suffer and die,” Sgt. Clay told WATE. “We felt like we needed to get that dog some help after what it had been through.”
Hero almost didn’t make it through surgery, but he managed to pull through.
“He has had a really rough life,” Carla Welch, founder and director of the Fighting for the Bullys rescue organization in Knoxville, Tenn., told WATE. Welch started an online fundraising page that raised the money for Hero’s veterinary care.
Despite Hero’s ordeal, Welch said he is very mellow and social. “He has had a bum back leg and a bum front leg, but he gets around fine and he’s looking for a good friend,” she told WATE.
“He’s very laid back, very sweet,” Welch told WBIR. “He likes to talk to you. He’s going to make somebody a great companion.”
Hero Needs a Forever Home
If you’ve been holding out for a Hero, this sweet dog is almost ready for a loving forever home. You can find more information about adopting this special guy on Petfinder.com.
“Hero will get his second chance,” Welch told WBIR. “He will get a fantastic family, and he will finally get his happily ever after.”
A big thank you not only to Hero, Clay, Seely and Welch, but also to WATE and WBIR for reporting this positive Pit Bull story. Here’s hoping more news outlets follow your awesome lead.
An elderly woman probably thought she was doing the right thing by leaving her two small dogs inside her car, with the air conditioning and engine running, while she made a quick shopping trip to the Walmart in Wayne, W.Va., yesterday afternoon.
But somehow the dogs managed to put the car in gear and crashed into the exterior of the store. (Maybe they were hoping to pick up a few toys in the pet department.)
An employee on a break told WSAZ that when she saw the car rolling toward her and the store, she thought the driver might be pranking her — until she saw a dog behind the wheel.
After the crash, one of the dogs was able to roll a window down, perhaps to bark for help.
Thankfully both dogs are fine (and were not cited for driving without a license). There was only minor damage to the car and store.
The dog mom, who is in her late 70s, was able to drive her dogs home after the accident — and I’m guessing that’s probably where she’ll leave them the next time she makes a Walmart run.
A 16-year-old girl who was kidnapped and dragged into the woods by her hair is likely alive today thanks to a Bloodhound named Deja’s amazing sense of smell.
A woman from Twin Peaks, Calif., called the police in the middle of the night Monday and said her granddaughter had been fighting with her boyfriend, 18-year-old Logan Padberg, in her home. When she asked Padberg to leave, he took her granddaughter with him.
Deputies then got a 911 call from someone saying he was awakened by a woman’s screams for help. The caller looked outside and saw a man holding a flashlight and dragging the teenager by her hair into the woods. When they arrived at the scene, the police found her purse and fresh drag marks at the scene.
Deja, a 4-year-old Bloodhound who’s a K-9 deputy with the Rancho Cucamonga Police Department, was called to the scene with her handler, Deputy Josh Stone.
“I used a piece of her clothing that contained her scent and I gave it to Deja like I always do,” Stone told KTLA. “I presented it to her and said, ‘check it.’ She smelled it and she knows who she wants to look for.”
Deja ran through the woods and stopped on the porch of a house.
Deputies did a forced entry and found Padberg and the girl inside the house. Padberg was arrested and booked on suspicion of kidnapping, domestic battery and unlawful sex with a minor, KABC reports. He was held on $250,000 bail at the San Bernardino Central Detention Center.
The girl was released to her mother — and hopefully she gave Deja a big, well-deserved hug.
“Great work by K-9 Deja and the Twin Peaks Sheriff’s Station,” wrote the Rancho Cucamonga Police Department on its Facebook page. Hear, hear!
“He was in a hurry to catch up to the boat. He was literally chasing the boat,” Ronald Arndt told the Appeal Democrat. He was referring to a 10-month-old German Shepherd he saw swimming Saturday night in the middle of the Feather River in Northern California.
When Arndt and some friends pulled the puppy into the boat, they saw what Arndt called “horrible” infected gashes on his face, shoulders and back. Apparently the puppy had fallen off a boat and was then struck by a propeller.
Despite his injuries, the puppy was calm — until someone started the boat’s motor. Arndt held the puppy, who they named “Water Shepherd,” in his arms as the boat made its way back to shore.
“I have a soft heart for dogs,” he told the Appeal Democrat. “I get too attached. This dog, he broke my heart.”
Arndt and his friends rushed Water Shepherd to a local veterinarian. The pup was treated for his wounds and is recuperating at Sutter County Animal Services in Yuba City.
Since Water Shepherd’s skin was starting to die around his wounds, Animal Services Manager Diana Barrett believes he was in the river for a day or two. The puppy is housebroken and obviously someone’s pet.
“Ideally, we want the owner to say, ‘Oh my gosh! That’s my dog,'” Barrett told the Appeal Democrat. “But we want to give this guy a chance.”
The shelter is in need of bandages and other donations. For information on how to donate, visit its website or call 530-822-7375.
Within the past eight months, two other dogs have made the news after falling from boats.
In March, a German Shepherd/Husky mix named Luna fell off a boat near the coast of Southern California. After more than a month went by, her dog dad assumed she had drowned. But five weeks after she disappeared, Luna was discovered on a private island owned by the Navy. She was in pretty good shape, considering her castaway ordeal.
In November, a Yellow Lab puppy named Noodle fell off a ferry in Italy’s Gulf of Naples, but the ferry operator refused to stop to save her. Fortunately, half an hour later, boaters were shocked to see Noodle treading water in the middle of nowhere. They rescued her — capturing it on video — and returned the puppy to her grateful dog dad.
Photo credit: Greg Loesch (That’s another German Shepherd, not Water Shepherd)
They all deserve it, right? You can vote now through Aug. 24 for your favorite pup to win the grand prize in the 2016 American Humane Association (AHA) Hero Dog Awards, presented by the Lois Pope LIFE Foundation.
The awards “celebrate the important role dogs play in our lives,” said Dr. Robin Ganzert, AHA president and CEO. “The American public and our special judging panel now have an extraordinarily tough task ahead of them in determining who our top dog will be because all are worthy winners.”
That’s for sure. Over the past five years, millions of votes have been cast for nearly a thousand dogs competing for the award. The program reaches more than 1 billion people each year.
You can vote online once every day for your favorite finalist until noon Pacific Time on Aug. 24, as long as you’re a U.S. citizen and at least 18 years old.
The Hero Dog Awards ceremony will be held in Los Angeles on Sept. 10. The 2016 grand prize winner will be announced during the ceremony, which will be dedicated to Harley, the winner of the 2015 Hero Dog Award. Harley, a 15-year-old Chihuahua who spent the first 10 years of his life in a puppy-mill cage before becoming a “spokesdog” against these cruel facilities, died in March.
To help hero dogs everywhere, AHA will donate $2,500 to each finalist’s charity partner, and an additional $5,000 to the grand prize winner’s charity partner.
Founded in 1877, AHA was the first national humane organization in the U.S. and is the only one dedicated to protecting both children and animals.
It’s still a bit early to mark your calendar, but the 2016 Hero Dog Awards will be televised on the Hallmark Channel in late October.
2016 AHA Hero Dog Awards Finalists
Arson Dogs: Judge
As an arson K-9 with the Allentown Fire Department in Pennsylvania, 7-year-old Judge, a Labrador Retriever, has worked 275 fire scenes over the past five years. The evidence Judge discovered has led to many arrests and civil penalties for insurance fraud cases, and the number of arson fires in the city has dropped nearly 53 percent. Judge is currently participating in a pilot program to provide autistic children with lifesaving information.
This category honors ordinary dogs who do extraordinary things. Hooch, a French Mastiff, has badly cropped ears, a broken tail — and no tongue. It was probably removed so he could be a bait dog. Zach Skow, of Marley’s Mutts Dog Rescue in Tehachapi, Calif., adopted Hooch from a shelter where the skittish dog had refused to eat or drink. Skow nursed Hooch back to health by hand-feeding him. Hooch is now a therapy dog with Marley’s Mutts’ Miracle Mutts, helping autistic, abused and special-needs kids realize they can overcome any obstacle.
Ten-year-old, 12-pound Hook is a hearing dog for his handler. As the two walked across train tracks in Sacramento, Calif., the woman couldn’t hear an oncoming train. Hook began jumping on her, alerting her to the train and saving her life. He is always by the side of his handler, who’s a family therapist. Whenever her patients are upset, Hook will jump into their laps to comfort them. Hook also chased off an intruder who broke into the office.
K9 Roo is a ballistics/bomb dog with the Boston Police Department. After the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, Roo searched for secondary devices and was the only police dog there for the capture of Dzokhar Tsarnaev. During his career — Roo is retiring this year — he recovered 12 firearms (three had been used in homicides) and more than 300 shell casings involved in shootings. Roo answered at least 200 calls to investigate suspicious packages. When he’s not working, Roo visits children in hospitals and performs demonstrations at community events.
Click here to vote for Roo.
Military Dogs: Layka
In 2012, as Layka’s team fired on an enemy compound in Afghanistan, rifle fire was returned from the compound. Layka was sent inside to look for combatants and explosives. She was hit with four rounds from an AK-47 in her right shoulder. Layka was rushed to a location where medics worked on her, and then flown to a base where her right front leg was amputated. After additional surgeries, Layka was medically retired from service three months later.
Kobuk, a trained and certified member of the non-profit Maine Search and Rescue Dogs team, found a 77-year-old woman suffering from diabetes and dementia who had been lost in the woods for over two days without food, water or her medications. Running almost a quarter mile into the woods, Kobuk spotted the woman and then ran back to alert his handler, and ran back with him into the woods to rescue the woman in time to save her life.
Gander, saved from a Colorado shelter and trained by a women’s prison program, is now a service dog and was the first mixed breed to win the American Kennel Club’s Award for Canine Excellence (ACE). He and his handler travel the country to raise awareness of PTSD, veteran suicide, service dogs, and people with visible and invisible disabilities. They have helped raise a million dollars for veterans’ groups, veterans, service dog charities and people in need.
As a stray, Mango was hit by a car, paralyzing her rear legs. She was going to be euthanized by a shelter when Emma’s Cleft Palate Chihuahua Rescue stepped in. Mango is now a therapy dog for her dog mom, a veteran. They participate in the Emma’s Rescue Reserve program, in which paralyzed dogs work with disabled veterans, showing them that if a small dog in a wheelchair can overcome her handicap, then so can they. Mango’s Freedom Wheels, named in her honor, has donated over 150 custom-built wheelchairs to help other animals become mobile.
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