Man's Best Friends - True Stories of the World's Most Heroic Dogs. John McShane

Man's Best Friends - True Stories of the World's Most Heroic Dogs - John McShane


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or landline phone. He even used to be able to put a video in with his nose but that skill doesn’t really transfer to DVDs.’

      Sam Good was also a sufferer from Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy (RSD), affecting the nerves and muscles in her body and sparking a series of painful seizures through her body. ‘It’s like Restless Legs Syndrome times 100 and it’s through your spine,’ she explained.

      She was getting ready for bed and in her pyjamas when she decided to turn out the lights on her unheated back porch in the American state of Utah. The sub-zero temperature caused another seizure, however, and she fell onto the porch seat. ‘I was in a ball and I got in a ball because I knew I was going to freeze. I thought I was going to freeze to death because I couldn’t get words out,’ she recalled.

      From the seat, in intense pain, Good says she was finally able to softly call out the name of her dog Maddie (also a Golden Retriever), whose acute hearing enabled her to hear the distress cries: ‘She kept picking my arm up and picking my arm up, and I’m like, “Maddie, I can’t!” And she just put her back under my belly, and kept lifting and lifting.’ At that point, Good says she could barely get her arms round the dog’s neck: ‘She had to keep lifting me onto her back to get the rest of me because I was numb – my spine, I didn’t feel anything.’

      Eventually, the 104lb Retriever carried her owner (who was on her back by this time) to her bed inside. She was still hurting but was warm and eventually the seizure subsided. ‘If it wasn’t for Maddie’s rescue, I’d have been frozen,’ she said. ‘Maddie isn’t just my best friend – she’s the best dog ever!’

      Similar sentiments might have been expressed about Reona, the 109lb Rottweiler who leapt over three fences into a neighbour’s garden in 1989 when an earthquake tremor struck California. The giant dog then sauntered through the back door and sat beside five-year-old Vivian Cooper. Soon, the frightened girl –who was susceptible to life-threatening seizures when excited – calmed down.

      Her mother, Karen Cooper, suffered leg cuts and a broken foot when hit by jars shaken out of a refrigerator by the ’quake: ‘I got to the door once and the earthquake moved me back – that’s when I thought we were going to die. I looked out the back and there was this big brown face. Reona looked at me as if to say, “What’s the matter with you?” She walked over to my daughter, sat on her feet and held her against the wall.’ Reona gently positioned the little girl against the kitchen cabinets and calmly kept her there, even when a heavy microwave was shaken off the work-surface and crashed to the floor in exactly the same spot as the young girl had been. Throughout the ordeal, Vivian held on tightly to the dog, burying her head in its dark coat.

      ‘When I finally got over to Reona, I said, “Can I have my baby, please”’ Karen recalled. ‘And Reona looked at me like, “Well, if you’re calm enough.” Then she walked out the door.’

      Job done!

       CHAPTER 2

       STATELY GERMAN SHEPHERDS

      The dogs featured in this book come in all shapes and sizes, ages and temperaments. Often they have been bred for varying tasks in different climates, yet all show an enduring fondness for the human race. And although it might at first seem invidious to single out certain breeds, there are some who perhaps merit a specific mention without in any way detracting from the qualities of all.

      The German Shepherd (also called ‘Alsatian’ at one time when anti-German feelings ran high) is one such breed. A comparatively modern breed, dating back to the end of the nineteenth century, the dog was originally bred to guard and herd sheep, although it eventually became recognised as one of the best breeds for police and military work due to its strength and intelligence linked with its excellence in obedience training. Householders and businesses also discovered the Deutscher Schäferhund (literally ‘German Shepherd Hound’) made an ideal companion and guard.

      There can be few better instances than the case of Moti, the five-year-old German Shepherd, who literally ‘took a bullet’ for his owner when he stopped an armed robbery. The drama began when a masked man walked into a liquor store owned by the Patel family on US Route 130 in Burlington County, New Jersey, shortly after 9pm, one Friday evening.

      ‘I just closed the register and grabbed the panic button and he pointed the gun at me and said, “Give me money,”’ recalls Mital Patel, co-owner of Town Liquor. But the very sound of the intruder’s voice, the harshness and aggression in it, alerted 115lb Moti, out of sight behind the counter. There was something in the gunman’s voice that he didn’t like.

      ‘Without giving him a command or anything, he just jumped over the counter and started barking at that robber. He had his gun pointing towards my mom, so he moved it from my mom to Moti and just shot him,’ said the Patels’ daughter, Hiral. Moti jumped down and started around the counter, but the robber had already gone. It was then that the Patels noticed the blood on the floor and rushed Moti to a veterinarian.

      An X-ray revealed the bullet went through the dog’s neck, narrowly missing his throat, and had lodged in his shoulder. Badly injured as he was, Moto was a survivor. ‘He saved mine and my mom’s life, or we would’ve been the one who got the shot,’ said Hiral. The wound meant the brave dog would have to limp for a time while recovering, but a grateful Mital Patel said: ‘He’s my hero.’

      Shelby, a seven-year-old German Shepherd from Ely, Iowa, won a Hero Dog of the Year award after saving the lives of two adults and two children by alerting them to dangerously high carbon monoxide levels in the home where they were sleeping. On the evening of 13 December, after a long day of baking Christmas cookies, John and Janet Walderbach woke to the cries of their friends’ two children (who were overnight guests). Both they and the youngsters experienced terrible headaches and upset stomachs then, as Janet was rocking the younger child to sleep, she passed out.

      Shelby revived her owner by nudging her until she regained consciousness. The dog had her ears down and her tail between her legs as she went to wake John. She continued to behave anxiously and would not leave the couple’s sides as they tried to determine what was making everyone feel so sick. Thinking Shelby might need a trip outdoors, John put her outside but that made her more anxious as she began to bark, whine and scratch at the door. Only when John, Janet and the children were safely outside the home did she stop making a fuss.

      They made their way to hospital, where all four were successfully treated in hyperbolic chambers, which eliminated the carbon monoxide in their bodies so preventing any severe damage. Doctors remarked they were very lucky to have made it out when they did. The house measured 280ppm (parts per million) of carbon monoxide, a level at which death or severe long-term damage is likely. Shelby had survived the incident as well. And her owner – Joleen Walderbach (John and Janet’s daughter) – couldn’t have been more proud: ‘In my eyes and in the eyes of my family, Shelby is more than a hero – she is a lifesaver, a guardian angel.’

      Another dog who was ‘more than a hero’ was Chips, the animal most decorated in World War II, who was not pure German Shepherd (he had Collie and Husky in his background). Despite this, he possessed all the traits of the Germanic breed. Chips was owned by Edward J. Wren from New York and during the period of conflict, many private citizens gave their animals to the forces to help the war effort. In 1942, Chips was trained as a sentry dog at the War Dog Training Centre in Front Royal, Virginia and assigned to the 3rd Military Police Platoon, 3rd Infantry Division. He served in North Africa, Italy, France, Germany and Sicily.

      Chips was one of the first dogs to serve overseas with the Military Police in World War II, where he was under the supervision of his handler, Private John P. Rowell. In addition to patrol duty with the infantry, he was posted to sentry duty in Casablanca during the January 1943 conference between the American and British leaders, Roosevelt and Churchill. Through eight campaigns across Europe, he was also a POW guard and tank guard dog.

      Just


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