Man's Best Friends - True Stories of the World's Most Heroic Dogs. John McShane
of the time Weaver kept his condition under control with close monitoring and by downing a glass of orange juice, should his blood-sugar numbers become low, but Belle also carried out her own health-checks. Periodically she would lick his nose and if something seemed wrong, she would paw and whine at him, not stopping until he responded.
‘Every time she paws at me like that I grab my meter and test myself – she’s never been wrong,’ said Weaver. On the day of his attack Belle had woken him by clawing at his chest. He felt ill and sluggish, but thought the dog wanted to go out. It was about 9.30am and Weaver – now completely out of sorts – groggily decided his pet must need to go outside. He took her out but on returning home, he collapsed in the kitchen. His blood-sugar level had been at 25, well below the normal range of 80–120.
‘She started scratching at me and whining,’ he recalled. ‘I thought maybe she had to go to the bathroom, not hitting on what was going on. I took her outside and brought her back in, and that’s when I had the seizure. I don’t know how long I would have lasted if Belle wasn’t there. Twenty-five is not conducive to life – I would have died. I would have slipped into a coma and died.’ On recovery, he visited a steakhouse for dinner, sharing the meal with his faithful pet.
It was the first seizure Weaver had experienced since Belle completed her training about eight months earlier and he had wondered if any dog could be relied on to do a job that might cause even some adults to be too panicked to cope in a crisis. And it was only by a remarkable chance that Belle and Kevin got together in the first place. Little Belle had twice been returned to the pet store where she was on sale as a puppy and it was only when a friend mentioned her to Kevin that he went to see her, about two years before she saved his life: ‘I felt sorry for her. I went in and said, “She’s mine!”’ he recalled.
The training for diabetic-alert dogs is similar to the education provided to guide dogs for the visually impaired but instead of learning to act as someone’s guide, the animals are schooled to sense when their handlers’ blood-sugar is too high or too low. During training, Belle was taught to lick her owner’s nostrils to smell his breath, reading his ketone level (acidic substances in the body). If something isn’t right then Belle, with her amazing sense of smell, knows to start scratching Weaver’s leg, warning him to adjust his sugar levels before a seizure comes on. Crucially, for real emergencies she was taught to bite down on his mobile phone – specifically, the number 9, which was programmed to dial 911.
Unfortunately not all dogs excel at ‘medical service’ and different breeds, with their varying qualities, are more suited to certain types of work. According to Mark Ruefenacht, founder of Dogs4Diabetics in California and a diabetic with his own service dog, breeds with exceptional smelling capabilities including Beagles and Labradors are best at diabetes training. ‘Our clients tell us that they not only have this amazing dog but for the first time in their lives, they have a companion to help them deal with a chronic lifetime disease,’ he adds.
The Beagle’s suitability stems from breeding: they are scent hounds developed for tracking hare, rabbit and other game. Their sense of smell is one of the best developed of all dogs. In more recent times they have also been used to detect prohibited foodstuffs and other contraband. But the most famous Beagle of all doesn’t actually exist – he is Snoopy (the dog in the ‘Peanuts’ cartoon) – though Belle had her own brush with fame.
Her miraculous intervention attracted widespread publicity and later in the year she was flown to Washington – in the cabin of the plane, not the hold – to receive an award alongside several human beings who had also saved lives by their quick intuitive use of a mobile phone. Of course they all deserved credit, though none so much as Belle. Her remarkable behaviour was preceded by another dog who also used a mobile phone to help its owner – not perhaps in the same sophisticated way as Belle, but it also managed to save a life and that’s what really counts.
Fireman Lorenzo Abundiz was trudging up the side of Mount Baldy in Southern California on his day off when one of his two Rottweilers, four-year-old Cinder, began to behave strangely and refused to budge one more inch. He did not know what to make of the dog’s behaviour but decided it would be best to return home. As it turned out, his pet’s stubbornness undoubtedly saved his life.
‘Usually my two dogs, Reeno and Cinder, like to walk up the trail and try to beat each other,’ said Abundiz, from Rancho Cucamonga, California. ‘But Reeno was on my side and Cinder didn’t want to go farther. I looked back at her and she wanted to turn around.’
Sitting on the couch back home, the fire fighter kept an eye on his pet, thinking she had fallen ill. Cinder was a special dog, given to him by a Santa Ana fireman saved by him in 1991. Within the hour, Abundiz was the one who became sick, however. He felt tightness in his chest and his heart began to beat rapidly. After attempting to walk to the telephone to call for help, he passed out. Reeno licked his face to wake him up, but Cinder did even more: he pushed the portable phone towards his owner, enabling Abundiz to dial 911. Meanwhile, his wife Roxane returned to the house and walked into the living room to find her husband gasping for air.
When paramedics arrived, Abundiz could barely breathe and almost had a heart attack. He was given oxygen and rushed to San Antonio Community Hospital in Rancho Cucamonga, where he stayed for two days and was treated for an erratic heartbeat.
‘I treat Cinder like my little boy,’ said Abundiz, 41. ‘I credit my dog for saving my life. If I would’ve been up on the hike and finished it, there would have been no one to help me – I would have died up there. I really strongly believe dogs can sense when your body chemistry is going haywire. That little Rotty saved my butt. She acted funny – that had never happened before. Cinder just sat in front of me, staring at me. I thought she was sick and I was going to take her to the vet. All of a sudden I felt palpitations in my heart.’ Paramedics had prevented heart failure with drug injections before taking him to a hospital, he added.
‘If I had finished that hike, there was no one around – no way would anyone have found me there! I would have died up there. I owe my life to my dog,’ he admitted.
Lorenzo Abundiz is not the only one to harbour such feelings. Maureen Burns was concerned when her normally full-of-beans pet Max began moping around the house. She was so concerned about his behaviour that she was convinced the dog was ill or at the very least coming down with something. But it was not the nine-year-old Collie-cross that had an illness but Burns herself. After Max began sniffing her breath and then gently nudging her right breast, the 64-year-old examined herself and discovered a small lump in the breast. A GP referred her to a hospital and a biopsy confirmed a cancerous tumour.
The 2008 case was another example showing that some breeds of dog appear to have an inherent ability to ‘sniff out’ diseases such as cancer. Mrs Burns, from Rugby, Warwickshire, said: ‘When the nurse told me I had breast cancer my first response was, “I know, my dog told me!” I expected her to laugh but instead she told me she had heard of similar cases. Max is usually such an excitable, loving animal but he became very sad and had stopped doing all the things he used to, such as sharing our bed or jumping on my lap for cuddles. Instead he would touch my breast and back off unhappily.’
Burns, who lived with her husband Roger (aged 66 and a retired engineer), went on to have the lump removed a few weeks later. Afterwards she revealed that she finally realised there was something wrong when Max watched as she examined herself in the mirror. ‘I felt a lump but I wasn’t unduly worried as I’d had a lump 20 years ago and it had proved to be benign. I’d also had a routine mammogram, which came back negative just 15 months earlier. As I felt it, I just happened to look over at Max, who was lying on my bed. Our eyes met and I just remember he looked so sad – I knew in that instant that something was badly wrong.’
The inch-wide lump was removed and doctors also took four lymph nodes from her underarm in case the cancer had spread.
Mrs Burns said that while their other pet – a retired greyhound called Grace – had behaved no differently throughout the health scare, when she returned home after having the operation in June, she was greeted by Max ‘acting like he was a puppy again.’ She added: ‘It was as though he