Troy, a Pit Bull who lives in Amsterdam, “pawed” it forward to his rescuers. He hand — er, mouth — delivered a gift to the police officers who saved his life.
While walking through Rietlandpark with his owner last month, a bee stung Troy’s neck. Troy went into shock and couldn’t walk. When his owner yelled for help, he was fortunately heard by officers at the Piet Heinkade police station across the street from the park.
The officers rushed Troy and his owner to a veterinarian. Because they got him there so quickly, Troy was able to make a complete recovery. The veterinarian said Troy would not have been so lucky if it had taken longer for him to get treatment for the sting.
Today Troy showed his appreciation to these heroes — with a box of popsicles.
“Troy gives his saviors ice cream as a thank you!” Politie Amsterdam posted on their Facebook page, along with a photo of the happy dog making his delivery.
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.
Robert Lineburger is alive today thanks to his seizure-detection dog, a Pit Bull named Precious.
But it wasn’t her detection of a seizure that saved Lineburger.
Two months ago, as Lineburger and Precious were walking to a restroom at the Port LaBelle Marina in Florida, where they live on a boat, an alligator suddenly lunged out of the water and onto the dock.
Because there are no lights around the marina, Lineburger didn’t see the alligator until it was too late.
Precious “jumped in front of me,” Lineburger told WPTV. “She was roughly 2 to 3 feet away from me when the gator attacked.”
The alligator killed Precious, but Lineburger was unharmed. His hero dog would be alive today if the marina had proper lighting, Lineburger said.
“We have no lighting, which is mandatory code enforcement,” he told WPTV. “Fire extinguishers are mandated by the fire marshal, we have cluttered docks, and at night with no light, you can’t see the clutter. You trip over them, and now you put the alligator problem on top of it, it’s a place for a disaster to happen.”
A neighbor told WPTV he’s seen alligators all around the marina, and has no doubt they’ve been on the dock.
Lineburger wants Glades County code compliance officers to inspect the marina. Nothing will bring back Precious, but Lineburger hopes the tragedy will help others be safe.
“I do not want her death to be in vain,” he told WPTV. “At least let it accomplish something and get some of these violations taken care of.”
While returning from spring break in Florida to the University of Arkansas, where she was a student, 19-year-old McKenzie Catron crashed her car into a utility pole in Dothan, Ala., last weekend. Catron, who was from Bentonville, Ark., was killed. Her 19-year-old passenger and her Pit Bull, Kai, survived.
But, spooked by the crash, Kai ran off.
Sgt. Jonathon Whaley and another sergeant were the first to arrive at the scene of the accident. “We felt we needed to find the dog,” Whaley told FOX 5. “We were going to do whatever we needed to do to reunite this dog with this family.”
Whaley and other officers, along with firefighters and dozens of other community members, volunteered their time to search for Kai. A local law firm offered a $1,000 reward for Kai’s safe return. A “Help Find Kai” Facebook community was created.
Two days after the crash, Benjamin Irwin — the attorney who had offered the reward — and another volunteer found Kai, but the dog ran off. Irwin’s wife and other volunteers pursued him “for over a mile and up and down too many city streets,” Irwin wrote on Facebook, “and made multiple attempts to catch Kai, until we finally created a loving wall when she went inside a person’s shelter in their backyard. … We apologize to all the cars and other people we cut off or just plain ignored while we focused solely on recovering Kai.”
A veterinarian who examined Kai said that except for being dehydrated and fatigued, the dog was in good shape.
The next step — and it was a big one — was to reunite Kai with her family in Arkansas, 770 miles away.
Whaley quickly volunteered to make the trip with his family. “I felt God impressing on me that we needed to make this trip,” he told FOX 5.
Kai returned home Tuesday night. “For us, [Kai] was just a part of her. And we found it. And now we can kind of start healing,” Catron’s mother, Kendra Mulherin, told KHBS.
The name of the “Help Find Kai” Facebook page has been changed to “We Found Kai.” Irwin said he’s donating the reward money to the Rogers Animal Shelter, from which Kai was adopted.
“Dotham, Alabama, you guys are God’s gift to Earth,” Catron’s family wrote on Facebook. “You will always have a special place in our hearts.”
According to her obituary, Catron worked as a lifeguard and did volunteer work to help make the world a better place. While her death is tragic, it’s heartening to know her spirit of giving continues to live on.
As Bob Stenzel and Darcy Cherry sat at a table in their Janesville, Wisc., home at dinnertime last week, a man with a gun entered their house through an unlocked door.
“He had his gun drawn on us and demanded us to the ground, and repeatedly asked us, ‘Where’s the safe?’ and ‘Where is the money?'” Stenzel told KTRK.
“I was just praying and praying and praying for us all to be safe,” Cherry added.
Levi, their 15-year-old, three-legged Pit Bull, began to growl and bark at the intruder. The man ran off, but not before shooting at Levi’s head. Fortunately, the bullet only grazed the top of Levi’s head and lodged in his shoulder.
After being treated for his wounds, Levi the hero dog is doing well and expected to make a full recovery.
“It’s a feeling you can’t really express in words,” Stenzel told KTRK. “I mean, thank God he was here.”
Levi is “as loving as a dog can get,” according to GazetteXtra reporter Frank Schultz.
“Levi got up on his three legs and hobbled over to nuzzle the legs of a Gazette photographer and reporter as they entered his house,” Schultz wrote Jan. 23. “Not bad for a dog who was shot in the head four days earlier.”
This was actually the second time Levi was a hero. On a mountain hike with Cherry and her son in 2014, Levi took a fall off a steep trail. One of his legs was shattered and had to be amputated. Cherry told KTRK she believes Levi protected her son, who was walking right behind the dog, from falling first.
Stenzel and Cherry rescued Levi when he was a puppy and had been abandoned in an apartment building.
“He is amazing. He bounces back so fast,” Cherry told Channel 3000. “I wish I could have his strength and his mobility to just come back and be so loving natured.”
According to the Janesville Police Department, the armed robber was white, 5’7 to 5’8 tall with a slender build, and between 20 to 30 years old. Anyone with information is asked to call the police department at 608-755-3100 or Janesville Crime Stoppers at 608-756-3636.
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