Felony Marie is what is classified as an emotional support animal...she provides beneficial qualities to keep Chad calm in stressful situations...he has traumatic brain injury and ptsd and by being involved with her he can disassociate himself from what is stressing him out...He had just been home from the hospital when we got her at 4 1/2 weeks..We took her early cuz she was the runt and not getting the proper nutrition she needed from mama with the 10 other pups keeping her off mama basically ...she was sooo small :)..In bringing her home I found that she motivated Chad into speaking more (speech was 1 of the things he had to re-learn) and walking more...his left frontal lobe was impacted so walking was another thing he had to re-learn...he bottle-fed her burped her, everything u would do for a baby...She is 18 months now and they are pretty much inseparable...she has an awesome personality though and loves many people but no one as much as Daddy. |
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - A pit bull is credited with saving his owner's life. The dog took a bullet during a recent
home-invasion robbery in May port.
The 10-month-old dog named Man protected his master, Mike Thomas, when he needed him most.
"My dog protected all of us. He took the bullet for all of us," Thomas said.
He said he was at home last week with his brother and some friends. That's when, police said, three men
stormed through the front door of the home with a shotgun.
Thomas said the men were wearing masks and trying to rob him.
"I seen like three dudes run up on the porch, and I kind of jumped up. As soon as I jumped up, they ripped
the door open and my dog jumped from sitting beside me all the way to the door and jumped on one of them.
The dude got scared and shot him," Thomas said.
The pit bull scared the intruders before anyone else was hurt. However, the dog's act of courage came at a
large price. The shotgun pellet entered Man's left shoulder, and doctors had to amputate his entire front leg.
Thomas said the Clay County Humane Society preformed the $5,000 procedure for free.
"At first, I was a little -- it just wasn't him because I pictured him with four legs. Now, he's used to it. He still
sleeps with me on my bed. It's all good. I do not love him any less," Thomas said.
With the help of his owner, Man has adjusted to life with three legs. Thomas said his dog is pain medication
and that the dog's stitches will be removed in a few days. |
Dogs save boy from drowning in dam
December 13, 2007 - 7:24PM
Two dogs saved a toddler from drowning by pulling the boy out of a dam
near Mackay, in central Queensland, today.
An Andergrove property owner heard a noise and found the two-year-old and the dogs on the embankment of her dam about
11am (AEST), police said.
The boy was covered in mud, had marks on his upper arms, and there were drag marks from his body in the mud, consistent with
the dogs pulling him from the water.
Police said the boy had wandered from his home and his dogs, a rottweiler-cross and a Staffordshire terrier, had followed.
The child was taken to Mackay Base Hospital for a precautionary examination. |
LANCASTER -- Lancaster resident Pat Morrison is a fervent believer in the benefit that dogs have for the disabled.
Put in a wheelchair by a 1996 horseback riding accident, Morrison is now assisted in her daily activities by Panda, a pit bull mix she found wandering the streets and trained to switch on lights, retrieve dropped objects and pull her wheelchair.
"I needed a dog and she needed a person," said Morrison.
Morrison found Panda as a puppy starving on a Lancaster street in August. When no one answered her newspaper ads seeking the dog's owner, she had the pooch spayed and vaccinated. Facing a two-year wait for a companion dog from a company in Santa Rosa, Morrison decided to keep the pup and train her.
Panda's first training was to paw at the light switch when Morrison said "light." It took the dog five minutes to learn.
"She was amazingly quick," said Morrison, who before her accident had trained dogs and horses.
Then Panda learned to pull Morrison's wheelchair in public, to carry objects for Morrison and to retrieve items she has dropped.
Black and white and now 11 months old, Panda wears a green vest bearing patches that read "Service" and "Ask to Pet Me, I'm Friendly."
"She does amazingly well with minimal experience. When we go to the library, she falls asleep," said Morrison. "She's so good."
Morrison was injured when the horse she was riding reared up and fell on her. The accident crushed the fourth and fifth thoracic vertebrae in her spine, leaving her without the ability to stand, weak arm muscles, loss of speech and the loss of 10 years from her memory |