Man's Best Friends - True Stories of the World's Most Heroic Dogs. John McShane
how could Max have done this? It is of course known that a dog’s sense of smell is vastly superior to that of humans and in 2004, a study by Buckinghamshire Hospitals Trust and the charity Cancer and Bio-detection Dogs found that the pets could detect bladder cancer in urine samples. Cancer cells are known to produce chemicals called Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs), which give off distinct odours that dogs are believed to react to.
On the other side of the Atlantic (but on approximately the same date) another remarkable act of medical ‘diagnosis’ by a dog was taking place. Alas on this occasion the hero, a two-pound black Yorkshire Terrier called Peggy Sue, suffered for her act of loyalty when she was attacked by another dog.
Dorothy Giddings, 77, and her husband Gary, 69, were sitting side by side in their pink and blue velour recliners watching afternoon television (Dorothy’s is pink and Gary’s is blue). After a while, Dorothy told Gary she thought she might take a nap. Gary picked up a book and then dozed off himself with Peggy Sue sitting in his lap. He was startled awake when Peggy Sue leapt into Dorothy’s lap and began barking in her face. He looked across and saw Dorothy had leant back in the chair and was shaking uncontrollably: ‘She had quit breathing and her lips were turning purple – I don’t know how long she’d been like that.’
Gary yelled for the couple’s downstairs tenant at their home in Benton City, Washington to call the emergency 911 number and pounded on his wife’s chest to get her breathing again. With paramedics on the way, he let their other dog – a black Border Collie named Cassie – inside so she wouldn’t stop them on the steps leading up to the house. According to the Giddings, Cassie had always been protective of Dorothy and when she saw Peggy Sue yapping, she assumed the smaller dog was attacking their mistress.
Cassie lunged forward and seized Peggy Sue’s head in her jaws. She bit so hard that the Yorkie’s eyes bulged out from the pressure. ‘It was like “boom!”’ Gary explained. He prised Peggy Sue from the Collie’s mouth and locked her in a bathroom for protection, while noticing one of Peggy Sue’s eyes was dangling on her cheek after the attack. Dorothy was still in trouble and he had to make sure she survived before he could help the dog, though.
Paramedics got Dorothy to the hospital, where she learned the seizure had happened because of scar tissue left behind in her brain when a benign tumour was removed, two years earlier. While the couple were away, their downstairs tenant rushed Peggy Sue to an emergency veterinarian in Pasco. The vet sewed the Yorkie’s eyes shut and following this, Gary and Dorothy were informed that Peggy Sue would likely lose one eye and be at least partially blind in the other. Despite the expense and the dog’s condition, the couple never considered having their pet put down – ‘She’s our little lifesaver,’ said Gary. Nor did they attach any blame to Cassie for attacking the smaller dog. ‘She was trying to protect her mama, too – she just didn’t know how to go about it,’ he added.
‘Peggy Sue has always been more Daddy’s dog,’ said Dorothy. ‘When she sleeps on the bed, she sleeps right on top of him, but she’s always been trying to win me over.’
When it came to Orca, her Golden Retriever, university student Cheryl Smith did not need any winning over. Twenty-two-year-old Cheryl was enjoying an afternoon out near her home in Heslington, York, with Orca running alongside when her wheelchair hit a brick on a dirt track. The 3cwt machine plunged several feet down an embankment to land on top of Cheryl (who suffered Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy, a disabling condition which prevented her from walking), pinning her flat in the water.
Orca – who finished specialist rescue training with the charity Canine Partners for Independence, CPI, a mere eight weeks earlier – immediately ran for help. The dog instinctively knew her owner was in need of medical attention. The first person he encountered mistook him for a stray and tried to take him back home before he slipped his lead. Incredibly, Orca ran back to check on Miss Smith – now increasingly distressed – before setting off again.
This time he attracted the attention of Peter Harrison, who was jogging through a nearby field, by leaping up and down then running to and from the scene. Harrison followed him to find Miss Smith before running to his nearby home to call the rescue services. He arranged to meet a fire crew half a mile away at the nearest road while his wife Julie and their daughter Rosie went to stay with Cheryl. Firemen lifted her out of the ditch and kept her warm until a paramedic vehicle arrived to take her to York Hospital, where she was treated for mild hypothermia.
‘He was only a baby of 17 months,’ said Cheryl. ‘I was walking him about a mile away from my home on a bridle path. I was in my big electric wheelchair and he was off the lead when one of the front wheels hit a rock or something. I plunged about 12 or 15 feet down the bank into a ditch filled with water.
‘To start with, Orca was crying because he wanted to come down the bank but I didn’t want him to, because he wouldn’t have got out of the ditch again. He was confused and didn’t know what to do. I had to convince him that I wanted him to help me by going away. After five minutes he ran off, then it started raining. I was initially up to my waist in water but the rain was threatening to fill the ditch even further.’
Orca returned, alone and collarless. ‘He’d gone to somebody but they tried to take him home to phone the number on his collar. As soon as the guy tried to take him in the wrong direction, he pulled out of his collar and ran back to me,’ Cheryl continued.
‘I told him to go and get help again and this time he didn’t hesitate. He ran straight off and found a jogger, and managed to get him to follow him from over a mile away by barking at him, running up to him and running away again. The man didn’t speak dog, but Orca wouldn’t leave him alone until they found me.’
Cheryl, a chemistry student at York University, said: ‘It frightens me to think what would have happened if Orca had not been there. It was pouring with rain and the chances of anyone passing that way were remote. Without him I might have died in that stream – I owe him everything.’
The passer-by told the emergency services that he had mistaken Orca for a stray and had tried to take him home. Cheryl adds: ‘When he came back without anyone I really began to give up hope – I thought he had just been chasing animals around in the woods or something. I was lying there for what must have been about two hours and it was pouring with rain and hailstones. There was a foot of water in the ditch and I was being pushed down into the thick mud below it. I was really scared, I was freezing and I knew no one would find me by chance – it seemed like an eternity before Orca arrived back with a man right behind him.’ Jogger Peter Harrison said: ‘Orca really persevered to attract my attention. It’s lucky he found me because the weather was so bad – Orca is a very intelligent dog.’
After the rescue, Orca was rewarded with a steady supply of carrots (his favourite treat) and bones. Cheryl told how he was able to obey 105 commands, including unloading the washing machine and pressing buttons at pedestrian crossings. She said: ‘He is still only a puppy but he is so intelligent – I don’t know what I would do without him. People have described it as like a scene from the old Lassie movies.’
Fire sub-officer Carl Vinand said: ‘The dog is the real star. Cheryl is extremely lucky to be alive – the fall alone could have killed her as the wheelchair is very heavy.’ Aside from hypothermia, she was unhurt, though. Orca’s rescue led to him receiving the People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals’ gold medal – the animal world’s George Cross – for gallantry and devotion to duty. More importantly, it sealed the relationship between dog and owner.
‘That’s it, mate – it’s you and me now. We’re a team,’ thought Cheryl, on arriving home from hospital. Orca went on to complete his training with the CPI, having learnt the 100-plus commands, including ‘take off the jacket’ (unzip it and pull both sleeves off) and ‘foot’ (lift the owner’s foot and put it on a wheelchair footplate). Cheryl then taught him another 44 commands, including hand signals. As she explained: ‘When I was a student in lectures, I needed to be able to communicate with him without talking.’
Years later Orca could open and unload the washing machine, operate the light switch with his paw and open the front door to visitors. Cheryl said: