Fluffy or Fido: My hero

It’s not unusual to hear of people doing amazing things for the people they love. I thought perhaps readers would enjoy hearing about amazing things pets have done for the people they love.

Not only have these animals exhibited grand expressions of devotion, but some have risked their lives, even sacrificed them. And it happens all around us.

Right here in Campbell County, Gretel, an 8-year-old Daschund, became hero to her owner, Tom Hall. He fell from his roof on to his back and lay hidden from view for almost an hour. No one else was at home at the time. Hall shouted for help unsuccessfully, then began drifting off into unconsciousness when his wife returned home and found Gretel behaving very unusually. The anxious dog led her straight to him. Tom suffered a fractured spine but is recovering.

Other accounts come from news stories around the country.

We are all familiar with news headlines that inspire laws to ban pitbulls. I wonder where Ann Matthews would be now if pitbulls had been banned in her area. Norton, Ann’s pitbull, saved her when she went into shock, the result of a spider bite which her body was unable to fight due to medication she happened to be taking. The dog located Ann’s husband and insistently nudged the sleeping man until he woke up and followed Norton to the nearly unconscious woman. Paramedics were called just in time, and she was rushed to a hospital where she spent three days recovering from her near-death experience. Norton was inducted into the Purina Hall of Fame as a hero.

Debbie Parkhurst of Maryland would have succumbed to the piece of apple she was choking on if her dog Toby hadn’t jumped onto her chest, affecting a modified Heimlich maneuver. Toby, a Golden Retriever mix, was originally found after he had been tossed away like trash in a dumpster.

When paraplegic Katie Vaughn’s truck went out of control, overturned and began smoking, Rottweiler, Eve, extricated her owner from the vehicle and hauled her 10 feet away. They were still in peril, however, after the truck burst into flames. Eve made it her mission to drag Katie another 40 feet from the wreck as if she knew an explosion could occur. Firemen arrived in time to extinguish the blaze. Eve was given an award for bravery.

Fire is an element that animals naturally fear and spontaneously flee, so it’s especially remarkable that when disabled Jamie Hanson’s cat accidentally knocked over a lit candle in her house and a fire started, her German Shepherd/Retriever mixed dog, Jesse, stayed calm enough to bring his incapacitated owner her artificial leg and a phone so she could call 911 and escape. Once Jesse had ushered Jamie out, he returned upstairs to rescue the cat. Unfortunately, this was Jesse’s final act of love because, though, he saved his beloved owner, he and the cat perished in the fire. Jamie suffered burns but survived.

Folks agree that it was more than luck when Tommy, an orange and white domestic shorthair cat, speed-dialed 911 to save Gary Rosheisen of Ohio, who had spilled from his wheelchair and lay unconscious. “He’s my hero,” Rosheisen was quoted as saying in the Dec. 31, 2005, Columbus Dispatch.

There have been a number of stories about dogs or cats alerting their people to fire by scratching at doors or windows to get out, but, gray and white Jester went over-and-above cat logic when he banged warnings on the outside of a window to warn Teddy Morris, inside his Norwich, Conn., apartment that it was on fire!

Cathy Keesling of Indiana wouldn’t be here right now if her adopted kitty, Winnie, hadn’t insisted with aggressive clawing and meowing that she get up before the poisonous gas filling her room could kill her.

So folks, visit a shelter and keep in mind one of those unwanted pets could become your hero.