Service Dog Calls 911 After Owner's Fall

Richland, WA - Leana Beasley has faith that a dog is man's best friend. Faith, a 4-year-old Rotweiler, phoned 911 when beasley fell out of her wheelchair and barked urgently into the receiver until a dispatcher sent help. Then the service dog unlocked the front door for the police officer.

"I sensed there was a problem on the other end of the 911 call," said dispatcher Jenny Buchanan. "The dog was too persistent in barking directly into the phone receiver. I knew she was trying to tell me something."

Faith is trained to summon help by pushing a speed-dial button on the phone with her nose after taking the receiver off the hook, said her owner, Beasley, 45, who suffers from grand mal seizures.

Guided by experts at the Assistance Dog Club of Puget Sound, Beasley helped train Faith herself.

The day of the fall, Faith "had been acting very clingy, wanting to be touching me all day long," Beasley said Thursday.

The dog, whose sensitive nose can detect changes in Beasley's body chemistry, is trained to alert her owner to impending seizures.

But that wasn't what was happening on Sept. 7, and Faith apparently wasn't sure how to communicate the problem. During Beasley's three-week hospital stay, doctors determined her liver was not properly processing her seizure medication.

November 3, 2004

Toy Poodle Saves Family From House Fire

Knoxville, TN - A family escaped a fire that destroyed their home thanks to their toy poodle, Teddy. A member of the family less than a year, Teddy started barking early Sunday. "He does that occasionally, so I just hushed him," Michelle Singleton told WBIR-TV.

But Teddy wouldn't stop, and soon she smelled smoke.

She thought it was outdoors coming in through the air conditioner until her husband Randy Singleton noticed their closet was glowing. "That's when he realized it was a fire," Michelle Singleton said. They grabbed their three children and Teddy, and fled.

"We came outside and flames were going through the roof," Randy Singleton said. Watching their home of eight years burn was numbing. "You don't know what to do. You want to do something. You can't. I don't think you even realize what you're losing," Randy Singleton said.

They were able to rescue a few family pictures.

It was pretty sobering. It was very sad. Just a lot of memories in there, and just all burnt up. But I know God's faithful, and there's going to be good coming out of this," Michelle Singleton said. Like their little dog, Teddy.

"Yeah, he's going to get a big steak," Randy Singleton said.

September 27, 2004

Dog saves his human from rampaging bear
By NICOLE TSONG

ALASKA (Scripps Howard News Service) - Don Mobley figures he owes his life to his dog Shadow. The 3-year-old German shepherd mix took on a charging grizzly to protect his master.

Bears have bluffed Mobley before. Usually, he stands his ground. But when a female grizzly growled and charged him last weekend, its cub 15 feet away, instinct and experience told him one thing: run. "I don't think I had any choice," said Mobley, who at the time was gathering firewood for a night on a sandbar along the Nakochna River. With the cub so close, "I was going to get mauled." Mobley hot-footed it toward the river, thinking the deep water might turn the grizzly off the chase. But he knew the bear would overtake him in the 50 yards to the water's edge. The sow was about 10 feet behind Mobley when a black-and-tan savior zipped out of the woods and lunged at the bear.

It was Mobley's dog, Shadow. Mobley, 56, heard the dog and soon realized that the bear and its cub had disappeared with 3-year-old Shadow barking madly in hot pursuit. "The only thing that saved me was my dog," he said Wednesday. Shadow came through Saturday's ordeal with minor injury, raw spots behind his floppy black ears. Mobley isn't sure if the bear bit the dog or clawed it. He also doesn't know if Shadow bit back. But he's fine and so is Mobley, who is in Anchorage this week for an appointment.

Submitted by: Gloria Yang
August 15, 2002

Dog in Mercy Dash to Save Farmer's Life

VIENNA (Reuters) - An Austrian farmer's faithful dog saved his life by running for help after a
hay-making machine sliced up the 62-year-old's left foot, police said on Friday.

The farmer was working alone on Thursday except for Tschibsi, his one-year-old Alsatian mixed breed,
and could have bled to death without help, police in Upper Austria province said.

Tschibsi ran two km (more than a mile) after the farmer's wife as she bicycled into town and barked and
whined until she came back. The wife called for a medical helicopter that took her husband to a hospital,
where he was recovering.

June 28, 2002

Dog Alerts Neighbor When Painter Falls

A dog prevented a tragedy from happening last week.

Painter Kevin McDonald was painting a home when the ladder he was standing on gave way, NewsChannel5 reported.

"Once the ladder broke that was it. I was on the ground so fast I had no time to react," McDonald said.

The homeowner was gone, but the family dog was still around. The golden retriever saw McDonald fall 12 feet from the roof.

Neighbor Marie Istvan said the smart-thinking pet alerted her by running next door.

"He acted real funny like there was something wrong," Istvan said.

She followed the dog's trail and found McDonald barely moving in a pool of blood.

She was able to get him help right away. McDonald spent two days in the hospital but has since returned to work.

He thanked the neighbor and the dog for saving his life.

June 26, 2002

Dog Bites Gator, Saves Woman, Wins Award

MIAMI (Reuters) - A Florida dog who fought an alligator to protect an elderly woman was honored for his loyalty with a "Dog Hero of the Year" award.

Two-year-old Blue, an Australian blue heeler from LaBelle, saved Ruth Gay from the gator and survived numerous injuries, said the organizers of the annual Heinz Pet Products award, which was announced in Pittsburgh.

Gay, 85, was taking the dog for an evening walk along a canal behind her house last July when she slipped on wet grass and fell, breaking her nose and dislocating a shoulder. Blue lay at her side while she called for help.
Suddenly the dog growled and ran off into the darkness -- sensing an alligator that had climbed out of the canal about 50 feet away, apparently attracted by Gay's calls.

Blue fended off the reptile despite suffering numerous puncture wounds to his stomach and when Gay's daughter and son-in-law arrived home about an hour later, led them to where she was lying.

"I heard the alligator and Blue fighting, and I thought Blue was dead," said Gay. "It wasn't until my daughter came home and I heard Blue barking that I realized he was still alive and that he saved me from the alligator."

In winning the award Wednesday, organizers said Blue beat out about 100 contestants whose acts of bravery during last year were submitted by their owners or admirers.

Patti Jo Lambert, coordinator of the dog hero program, said Blue's story stood out. "In all 47 years of this program ... we've never had a winner who fought an alligator," she said.

April 4, 2002

A woman claims that after two men assaulted her Thursday, her dog came to her rescue.

The woman said that the two men suddenly appeared in her Hamilton mobile home's hallway, according to WLWT Eyewitness News 5's Anu Prakash. She tried to escape, but the men dragged her to the ground and assaulted her.

During the assault, the woman claims that she blacked out. When she came to, the two men were gone, but she found herself gagged and bound hand and foot.

Baby, the woman's dog, came to her rescue. The dog gnawed the binding off the woman's hands. She was then free to call 911.

Prakash reports that an eyewitness described two men who had been in the neighborhood that night. The woman also gave a brief description of the men who allegedly assaulted her: One an had a scar above his nose and his eye, and the other man had a tattoo on his hand of a sword with a rose.

February 5, 2001

The family dog saved a Titusville woman and her son early Thursday morning when their home caught fire.

Beatrice Williamson, 77, was awakened by her dog barking at 3:30 a.m. She discovered that her house was on fire, and she woke her son James and they both escaped the home.

James broke down the front door in the escape. Once the two were safe, James tried to go back in the house to save the dog and her 11 puppies, but he was too late.

James was able to save a pet boa constrictor, and the family cat was believed to have run out of the house during the blaze.

Firefighters said that the damage might not have been so extensive if the family had a working smoke detector. Firefighters said that faulty electrical wiring started the fire.

Williamson was treated for dizziness and high blood pressure at the hospital, then released. Her son was not injured.

January 4, 2001

Home, PA (USA Today) A three-legged, tailless pooch named Percy might look like a bedraggled Benji, but he's got the heart of Lassie. The terrier-mix's owner, Christina Lowman, 47, credits the small mutt with saving her life after she took a fall on Christmas morning. Lowman said she slipped on an icy ramp outside her home and was knocked out cold. She's not sure how long she lay outside in the 11-degree weather, but she said she could have died if not for Percy.

"When I woke up, the dog was licking my face," Lowman said. "He brought me to by licking my face and barking."

December 27, 2000

Harrisburg, PA (USA Today)Yosemite Sam, a 2-year-old 180-lbs St Bernard, kept his human Kathi Zerance afloat for nearly an hour after she suffered a brain aneurysm while swimming in the Susquehanna River. She underwent surgery amd is home recuperating with her 5 dogs.

Zerance, who took the dogs to the river for their daily exercise, joined them in the river. "All of a sudden I started hearing this load roar" and her body went limp.

She wrapped her arms around Sam's neck. The current began to carry them downstream until Sam could scamble onto a rock and stabilized Zerance with his body.

July 27, 2000

In The Line Of Duty

MIAMI (Reuters)A suspected carjacker has shot and killed Atlas, a Miami police dog, just three months after the animal joined the canine unit, police say.

The 2 1/2-year-old Belgian Malinois was chasing the suspect through a Miami schoolyard late on Saturday when the man opened fire, striking the golden-haired dog in the stomach, police said Monday.

Another bullet nearly strcuk Atlas' handler, police officer Wayne Cooper. Atlas died early on Sunday.

Police described Cooper as "distraught".

Killing a Florida police dog carries a maximum five-year prison term.

July 25, 2000

K-9 Slain In Drug Bust

Indianapolis IN Police are mourning the death of a canine gunned down by a confused officer in a raid on the home of a suspected drug dealer, police said.

Rookie police dog Balco, a Belgian Malinois, became the first police dog killed in action in the city's history during a raid on the home of Charles Howard on Monday night, Sgt Paul Ciesielski said.

"He got away from his handler, and one of the officers thought it was a strange dog coming at him," Ciesielski said.

July 18, 2000

Bark As Powerful As Bite

A south Fort Worth (Texas) family is crediting a Labrador mix dog, 3-month old Blackie, with saving their lives early yesterday, when fire tore through their home on Bewick Street, destroying almost everything and displacing the family.

The family members were awakened by the dog's relentless barking. Today, they have their lives, but they lost all their material possessions in the fire.

May 9, 2000

Hero In Wauwatosa

A family and their guests can thank the dog for saving their life when deadly carbon monoxide filled their home in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin.

The people were celebrating their daughter's birthday when the Rottweiler let out a series of wails from the basement, where she was kept. Just then.. the family started feeling woozy and they called for help. Firefighters got everyone out and went downstairs to save the dog.... who had passed out. Two firefighters also had to be treated for carbon monoxide poisoning... but everybody's okay now.

February 16, 1999

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