Everybody likes dog stories, right?

[farmgirl19]

Deerefan, and Larry; I am so very sorry to hear of your losses. They really do not live long enough, and they are family too. You have my deepest sympathy.

 

[GGB]

I still believe their is a reason that Dog spelled backwards is God-the only examples I know of here on earth of unconditional love.

 

[orezok]

Some dogs are just beyond explanation. A couple of years ago while in Paso Robles wine tasting, we stopped at a small winery where this Russian Wolfhound looking dog came to greet us as we parked. It was a very friendly dog and followed us into the winery.

We began talking to the owner about "Tootsie". He told us about this very special dog. He showed us a copy of Wine Dogs magazine that had a picture of Tootsie on the cover. One of the pictures attached. Inside was a story about how a family with a young child and Tootsie who was one year old at the time were by the Sacramento River. The river was flowing fast and the child fell in and was swept away. Tootsie immediately jumped in after the child, but both were swept out of sight.

Rescue crews were called and the worst was feared. After 5 hours of searching and a long way down stream, they found the child with Tootsie holding it's head out of the water on a shallow sand bar. We were also shown an article from the Sacramento Bee that documented this.

But... there's more to the story as told by the winery owner. Tootsie at a later date was at the house of a neighbor located a mile from Tootsie's owner. The person in the house had a heart attack. Tootsie ran to her owners house and as stated, virtually dragged him to his neighbors house, probably saving the neighbors life.

But wait, there's more... Tootsie was also bitten by a Rattle snake and survived and run over by a tractor (she was limping when we met her).

Sounds like Lassie was re-incarnated!

 

[wawajake]

This happened back in summer of 2002 to my best friend Golden Retriever Dawson who at the time was only 6 months old. Back then we regularly took him on a three hour drive up to our very remote, no phones, no electricity , cottage for weekends and vacations . One of those weeks we noticed he was not eating or drinking after a day and by next day was heaving but not bringing up anything, we were getting worried and even force fed him liquids (water and Gatorade) in hopes that if he had ate something poisonous it would either water it down or he would puke it up with liquids, but to no success. I told my wife I would make the 3 hour journey back to city to rush him to nearest vet, but because we were economically quite strapped, with two kids in university, we both agreed that if a vet bill estimate occurred over $1200 then we would have to put Dawson down instead.
I drove back at 80 mph assuming cops would understand and got to vet, they took him in right away and told me to come back in a hour or two they would have tests and xray results done. I returned an hour later and Vet shows me the xray and asks me if I know what that black item is in Dawson痴 stomach xray??I said yep I know exactly what that is , that is my padlock off my cottage crawl space. He must of liked the WD40 smell on it and mouthed it and then accidentally swallowed it , and it was so heavy he could not throw it up. The vet informed me that the surgery to remove it and the kennel overnights for recovery would be $1150. So of course I told him go ahead with surgery. Three days later we had our hero dog back, and I was given my padlock back, which is back on the crawlspace door. The padlock dog was the story for the vet office staff for years after. Dawson died a couple years ago now after many years of wonderful family friendship. The same vet put him under with respect and dignity due to a severe cancer, that Dawson bravely fought without showing any pain to us for the last two years. My hero !