Rescued abused dog saves owner’s life
By Phyllis DeGioia
November 5, 2009
A dog rescued many years ago, found as an emaciated stray with baling wire wrapped around her snout, repaid my friend last week by saving her life.
Thanks to a liver transplant a couple of years ago, Linda Thompson is getting back to a fairly normal state of health after years of creeping towards becoming terminally ill. She uses a pump for her diabetes, and just recently began working full time again. This past August I saw Linda for the first time in years. She lives in a suburb of Vancouver. She has been too ill to travel, and I just hadn’t made it out there in a long time.
Emma, an 11-year old shepherd mix, woke Linda up around 3 a.m. to tell Linda she wanted to go out. Linda staggered out to the kitchen aiming for the room behind it, which has the door to the back yard. Emma simply stopped by the kitchen counter and refused to budge. Groggy as all get out, Linda thought Emma wanted food, but her dish was full. Emma kept looking at the kitchen counter and then at Linda, then back to the counter, then back to Linda.
I can just see Emma doing this. She is one smart cookie.
“Eventually, I realized that my vision was quite blotchy and what she was indicating was my glucometer,” said Linda in an e-mail to me. The glucometer was on the kitchen counter where Emma was staring. Linda checked her blood sugar and found it dangerously low at 25 when normal is 90 to 140 (or 1.5 from a normal range of 5.2 to 7.6).
“If it had dipped any lower I would have blacked out completely,” said Linda, whose new job is a patient advisor for diabetics. “I started eating Dex4 tablets and Emma went outside, where it was raining heavily. Normally when it’s raining, she runs out and pees and then dashes back in the house. Not this night. She lay down in the grass for 15 minutes. This is significant because I have been known, in a hypoglycemic stupor, to take a couple of Dex4 tablets and go back to bed without checking to make sure it’s coming up and have subsequently tanked. After about 15 minutes, she came back in and again went to the counter where the glucometer was. I tried to get her to go down the hall to the bedroom, but she wouldn’t go until I had taken my blood again and told her that it was okay.”
Linda’s pump had been sending out noisy beeping alarms, but that night both Linda and her husband slept through them. It’s impossible to know if Emma was responding to the alarm or to a scent indicating a problem, but she not only knew something needed to be done immediately, she also figured out how to do it.
It’s frightening to think that without Emma, Linda could have died from this one episode after nearly dying two years ago (she was the sickest person her transplant surgeon had ever seen who survived). Linda’s health issues began almost 15 years ago, around the time I met her through an Internet dog list, and she is one hell of a survivor. I’ve never seen anyone that ill who had such an upbeat attitude every step of the way. In all the years I’ve known her, she’s only cried once that I know of, and not because she was sick or nearly dying: she cried because one of her dogs died in her arms while she was home alone and too sick to race the dog to the vet. Knowing that the dog wouldn’t have survived even if she’d been seen immediately never took away the pain.
At one point Emma was one of several rescued dogs in the house, but because of Linda’s health issues, Emma has been the only pet in the house for a while. Emma wasn’t there the last time I was, so this was the first time I met her. She’s an absolute doll. I took a lot of photos of them, and many of Emma, trying to show how happy she is despite the reasons for the scar around her snout. Linda and Emma have always had an emotional connection that went beyond the one she had with her other beloved dogs. It’s no surprise to the people who know them that Emma would be the dog to save Linda from a dangerous glucose drop; it would have been Emma if there were ten dogs in the house.
Emma is clearly getting a bit stiff these days, and her gait isn’t quite what it used to be. She has been totally content for years, and is an easy-going, affectionate girl. Whoever cruelly left her to starve with wire wrapped around her snout so that she couldn’t eat will surely get what he or she deserves in this world. Thankfully, Linda and Emma have always deserved each other, and now they have saved each other.
What an upbeat story. Thank you. Goes to show why God put dogs ….and cats in our lives.
Comment by VJ — November 5, 2009 @ 5:43 am
Thank you for such a beautiful story. Starts my day off right!!
Kathy
Comment by Kathyb — November 5, 2009 @ 5:58 am
One of the great stories, for sure.
One of my cats saved me—purposefully or not—the pot was burning on the stove with the fluid already burnt up. The cat was meowing.
What would have happened next I do not like to think about.
Haven’t lived without a cat since.
Emma knew what she had to do for Linda, that’s for sure.
Comment by Colorado Transplant — November 5, 2009 @ 6:42 am
What a great story! Thanks so much for posting this day-brightener.
Comment by Glenye Oakford — November 5, 2009 @ 6:50 am
A sweet story and a GREAT dog!
Comment by Natalie R — November 5, 2009 @ 9:49 am
A great story. Thanks! So many reasons to love our pets…..truly amazing story.
Comment by Snoopys Friend — November 5, 2009 @ 9:54 am
Awesome! Great story, Phyllis!
Give your friend an internet hug from me {{{hug}}} and one for her dog, too!
Comment by Liz Palika — November 5, 2009 @ 10:07 am
Linda, your sensitivity to her and her great love for you made this happen. Please hug your genuine lovable genius dog for me.
Comment by Colorado Transplant — November 5, 2009 @ 2:08 pm
thank you for the wonderful story - beautiful dog and great person (owner) very heartwarming.
Comment by mary frances — November 5, 2009 @ 2:42 pm
I still can’t get over that someone had wrapped this poor dog’s nose with wire. How was she rescued and found with the wire?
Comment by Snoopys Friend — November 5, 2009 @ 2:48 pm
wire around the nose? - that is so horrible.
Comment by mary frances — November 5, 2009 @ 3:02 pm
What a marvelous dog Emma is.
She’s got that ‘precious old dog’ look about her now, I certainly hope she’s around for a few more years yet.
And as for the utter scum who abused her origially….well, I don’t even want to think about them.
Why, oh why, do some people think it’s ok to treat animals that way ??? It’s one thing to not ‘like’ animals, but - in that case, just stay the heck away !
Comment by Alison — November 5, 2009 @ 4:11 pm
Linda says “All I know is that someone found her in the bush and took her to the SPCA. From there she went into rescue as she needed 24-hour acute medical care. She was very nearly dead of starvation when she was found. Anyway, I did some rescue work with a woman. This woman lived in a remote area with about 30 dogs and 60 cats. On a blustery Saturday in October, I went up to see her to take her some muffins, coffee and a rain jacket. When I got there, I discovered a 10 dog play fight underway with this stringy puppy at the bottom. I waded in and grabbed her because I thought she was being trampled. Little did I know that she had instigated the play fight:-)…The puppy found a spot in the yard where the other dogs couldn’t get at her and she laid there and stared at me for the next 3 hours as I repeatedly told the woman that I couldn’t take another dog, that my husband would divorce me, etc. After 3 hours, I broke down and took her home.
My husband was away camping so I had a day to prepare…I told him when he was 3 hours away from home so he could cool down. When he got home, he was friendly towards the puppy, but insisted that we needed to find her a good home. That was Sunday. Monday after work he asked me if I had had any luck. I said I was working on it…Same thing Tuesday and Wednesday. On Thursday, he came home and said: ‘She’s in her forever home, isn’t she?’ and the rest is history!”
Comment by Phyllis DeGioia — November 6, 2009 @ 6:01 am
Thank you Phyllis for the info. on Emma.
Comment by Snoopys Friend — November 6, 2009 @ 9:41 am
Seeing Emma and Linda in August, the connection between them is tangible and the story even unsuprising. I am so glad that she has a friend as fluent in communication as you, and a companion as devoted as Emma. This will help remind me to visit them soon… now I feel guilty for not doing it last week!
Lots of love, Jean
Comment by dr. grow — November 7, 2009 @ 11:52 pm