Meet Pete The Wonder Dog Who Saved His Family!

Boy are we proud of this super smooth black and tan boy named 'Pete,' the Oklahoma City, Oklahoma hound who saved his whole family from a house fire on Sunday.  Thanks so much to Kathy J. Fuller for writing in with the news:

Dear Joey and Maggie,

Pete saved the lives of his owners and their niece when he awakened them from sleep when the house was on fire!  Pete is a hero! 

Here's the remarkable (rebarkable?) scoop from KFOR.com:

A metro family says their small dog saved them from a house fire. Jennifer and Ricky Coffman say they were sleeping when a fire engulfed their home on the 13000 block of SE 71st Sunday Morning.
Ricky says their dog, Pete, came running through the house barking.
"(The fire) It came from the outside in, didn't get time for the fire alarms to go off," Ricky Coffman said.
His wife says Pete was their fire alarm.
The dog was able to wake up the family and within moments everyone was out of the burning house.
"Pete the wonder dog, he saved us," Jennifer Coffman said.
The Coffman's say their home was a total loss.

Way to go Pete.  Read about more Dachshund Heroes.

A Year Later: Dachshund Heroine Fritzie Saves Her Mom's Life

This'll start your week off with a bang.  Meet 3-year-old pretty red smooth 'Fritzie,' and her mom Clara Lynch, who hail from Dobbin, Texas.  Mrs. Lynch was making her way into the kitchen for a drink in the wee hours of Father's Day 2010 when she collapsed on the floor from a brain aneurysm.  She probably wouldn't be here today to talk about it, had it not been for her little heroine.  Excerpt from Your Conroe:

“I had never had a seizure or any type of health problem like this before,” said Clara. “I don’t remember a thing, but doctors said if I had lain on the floor all night, I probably wouldn’t have survived.”

Moments later, her husband Sam was awakened by Fritzie’s incessant barking.

“This wasn’t the type of barking she would do at a cat or a noise outside,” he said. “She climbed onto the bed and got right in my face – she wouldn’t stop until I got up.”
When Sam did get up, Fritzie led him directly to the kitchen where he discovered Clara and called for an ambulance. The trip from their remote area of Dobbin was slowed by a stalled train blocking a crossing, but Clara was eventually transported to the hospital for treatment.

Way to go Fritzie!  Read all about this little gal and the perceptiveness of animals at Your Conroe.

Dachshund Mix Tries To Rescue Kitties

Your dose of Friday Cute - it's a short little story, taken in its entirety from  South Mississippi's Sun Herald:

It wasn’t unusual to see J.J. come through his doggy door. After all, it was there just for the beagle/dachshund’s use.
But Crystal Crawford of St. Martin was surprised to see what was in her dog’s mouth Thursday.
“He was carrying a kitten in, very gently,” she said. After carefully placing the kitten on the floor, J.J. went back outside and returned with another.
Eventually, the dog brought in six tiny kittens, to his owner’s bemusement. Crawford and her son began looking for the kittens’ mother, but a search along the road revealed nothing.
Meanwhile, J.J. began displaying some very nurturing tendencies.
“He would lie next to them and lick them, like their mother would have,” she said.
J.J.’s concern was strong, but not enough to save the kittens.
The veterinarian who checked out the kittens told Crawford they had been alone in the woods for too long, and there were other complications. They died over the weekend.
J.J. is still a hero in the Crawford household.
“He did his best for them,” his owner said. “He’s my hero dog.”

Awwwwww.....J.J. is such a great little guy!

Dachshund News Roundup!

The countdown is on!  With four days to go til Spring, we couldn't be more excited to reacquaint ourselves with all the wonderful sights and smells the warmer weather brings.  This is a Dachshund News Roundup on a relatively cool March 16, 2011.  Sixty-degree weather is right around the corner!   Above, dog owners take advantage of the nice weather at the dog park at George Ward Park in Birmingham, Alabama, Saturday, March 12, 2011. The city of Fultondale has a new dog park making it the third municipal dog park in the area. A Dachshund runs with a ball as a Doberman closes in.  Source.

This Dachshund was so important to someone that he received a bust! (Rosa Bonheur Memorial Park, Elkridge, Maryland).  Via The Symbolic Beauty of Elkridge Cemeteries, the Elkridge Patch.

On Tuesday, March 15 at 7:30 AM, eight local heroes and one organization were honored at the American Red Cross' signature event – the Fred Meyer Breakfast of Champions in Portland, Oregon.  While 'Missy' the Dachshund had no formal training, her barking definitely made the difference when her owner collapsed.  This is her story via the Oregon Red Cross:  An 11-year-old dachshund, Missy is a tiny dog with enormous persistence. Last September, she showed up at Charles Mitchell’s house, barking furiously and refusing to leave until he followed her across the street to where Missy’s owner, Charlie Burdon, a heart attack survivor, had collapsed in his bedroom after suffering dizziness and nausea. Burdon had managed to reach his wife at work, who called 911, but by the time she and the paramedics arrived, Missy and Mitchell were at his side. Burdon, who was later diagnosed with vertigo, rewards Missy with her usual treats, walks, car rides and trips to Home Depot. The two men, who have known each other for years, both agree that sometimes the biggest hearts come in the smallest packages.

And finally, when the Schoch family’s 5-year-old dachshund, 'Happy,' goes for a run, the little dog actually goes two wheeling.  Recovering from back surgery, the Baytown, Texas, black and tan has her own custom wheelchair to help her get around and boy, does she get around.  Here, Sarah Schoch and son Christian, 9, go on a walk with Happy.  Source. 

Remember, if your Dachshund shows signs and symptoms of back issues, or goes completely down where they can't walk, there are options out there!  Take your dog to your vet immediately, and listen to the good advice offered at Dodgerslist, your Dachshund disc disease/IVDD resource.  There's always a link to them in the links column on your right. They have a very active discussion list, and are real pros when it comes to offering advice for IVDD Dachshunds and general Dachshund health.

Veterinarian Heroes: Dachshund's Surgery Goes On Despite Massive Earthquake

'Jonah' is a lucky dog

Meet Dr. Kirsten Wylie, nurse Amber Walker, and 'Jonah,' the handsome black and tan smooth.  Jonah was undergoing surgery for tumor removal on February 22nd in Christchurch, New Zealand, when the massive 6.3 magnitude earthquake struck.  But our dedicated professionals, our heroes, did not leave Jonah's side.  Excerpt from stuff.co.nz:

Kirsten Wylie was in the middle of a delicate operation to remove a cancerous tumour from a small dog when the earthquake struck. 

Wylie refused to leave Jonah, an eight-year-old dachshund, in the Linwood surgery, completing the 45-minute procedure to remove a thyroid carcinoma by the light of a torch, along with nurse Amber Walker.

Nor did she flinch when she had to blow air into a tube to keep the dog breathing until an oxygen bottle could be connected manually.

Wylie said the "fiddly" operation had been made more difficult by the big jolt, but she never thought of leaving Jonah.

"From where I was standing, I could look out the window and see the fence falling down," she said.

However, the dog "was blissfully unaware of the earthquake".

Wylie was yesterday reunited with a recovering Jonah.

Dachshund Heroism: Wiener Dog Saves Family From House Fire

Our Dachshunds, Our Heroes:  Pretty black and tan longhair 'Fancy' is the latest Dachshund to join our elite list of Dachshund Heroes.  The Kanawha County, West Virginia girl began barking as flames swept through the attic of her sleeping family's home: 

"She just kept barking and I got up and come in there and she was looking up at the attic where we have the ladder and kept barking," said Virginia Falls, Fancy's owner. "I walked up the ladder and when I pushed the thing up to look, the whole attic was engulfed in flames."
The father, mother and two children got out safely, but the parents suffered minor burns and smoke inhalation.
Emergency crews had a tough time getting to the scene because of icy roads. The house was a total loss.

Way to go Fancy!  Via KABC-TV.

Those Special Dachshunds: A Heroine Named Pepper

Thanks so much to Judith Paton for writing in all the way from South Africa with the heroic tale of her beloved girl 'Pepper.'  She writes:

Hi there Joey and Maggie,

First of all I need to start by saying that I just love your site. I will come back to see on a regular basis.

I would like to tell you about my dachshund Pepper, well we have 3 (Pepper, Rogueford & Cricket). But Pepper the eldest at 6 years is a remarkable little dog. Me being a diabetic who uses insulin 4 times daily need never to forget to take it. She just never forgets. On the hour 4 times daily she reminds me about the insulin. She would bark at me if it is time for me to take my shot. When I take my little bag out and open it she barks at me and insists to take the medicine out herself. She would carefully take it out and put it in front of me. But the most remarkable thing she ever did was the day I went into a semi coma. I still cry when I just think of it. I wasn’t feeling well that day and she was following me like a shadow. She always follows me but this was different. She just did not leave me alone. Always licking me and that is not like her. She is not a licker. Long story short, I went and laid on the bed and fell into a semi coma. She realised it and went barking at the gate. My neighbour said it was strange for her that Pepper is barking like that but thought she was just barking at something. When this did not work she pushed the phone off the hook and pushed the buttons. Well she must have pushed the speed dial because it rang through to my sisters phone. When she picked up she heard Pepper barking frantically. She said she just realised it was one of my dogs barking like that. First she thought nothing of it, but after a few minutes she realised but how is it possible for the dog to phone her. Well she rushed off to my house and found me on the bed in this semi coma. (She does have a key to my house). She said that the dogs were beside themselves. Especially Pepper. She was barking and howling and crying at the same time.

This little dog saved my life that day. We always just think she is clever but she a brilliant. Who said dogs can't think for themselves? I owe my life to her.


Unrelated image circa 1940 by Walter Edward Blythe.

Giving Thanks To An Unlikely Hero

Meet Loretta Birchett and her heroine:  pretty red smooth 'Toots.'  The Baltimore, Maryland duo are seen here enjoying a Thanksgiving dinner organized by the city of Baltimore and the American Red Cross after a tornado destroyed their home on November 17th.  Ms. Birchett has nothing but gratitude for her brave little girl:

Loretta Birchett said she was most thankful for her Dachshund, Toots, whom she credits with pulling her to safety from the storm.

Birchett said the dog's ears stood straight up in the air and she started pulling Birchett by the shirt to nudge her off the bed in the Mount Pleasant Heights apartment. The dog then jumped off the bed. As Birchett went to get her, the ceiling started "peeling back like a can."

"We got everybody out and everybody's OK. That's the most important thing," Birchett said.

She usually has Thanksgiving dinner with her two brothers. This year, they dined together at the high school. Her brother, Ronnie Askew, said the dog repaid a favor in saving Birchett.

"Somebody gave her the dog. She saved the dog's life and the dog returned the gift," Askew said.

Way to go Toots!  Read more about the dinner for tornado victims at The Baltimore Sun.

Lacy, The Dachshund Who Saved His Life

There's no denying that our dogs are there for us during the good times as well as the bad times.  And when things get really bad, the unconditional love of a furry friend has absolutely no boundaries - they can even save your life.  Such is the story of Robert Peay and his Dachshund 'Lacy,' seen here, who hail from Springville, Utah. 
Peay struggled with depression after losing his wife to disease, a son to alcohol poisoning and a second son to suicide. Contemplating suicide himself, he prepared to get drunk and do it.

What saved him was a spunky toy dachshund, Lacy, whom he and his wife had adopted three years earlier. He knew that no one else would take care of Lacy, and he knew that she’d miss him.
“She’s the one that did it all,” he said. “We’ve been through a lot, me and her.”

Read the rest of this story at The Daily Herald.

We'll file this one under Dachshund Heroes.

Dachshund Fends Off Coyote

 

We hear so many sad stories of Dachshunds meeting their end when they have a tussle with a coyote - now here's a tale where the Dachshund show's what's what.  Meet our newest hero, sweet smooth "Little Puddin,'" a chocolate and tan who hails from Bayside, Wisconsin, population 4,518. 

Mixing Things Up A Bit

So we take a week off for a little vacation, and oddly the Dachshund news is a little sparse while we're gone - maybe everyone was busy celebrating Mother's Day with their Dachshund Moms?   Regardless, we're always happy to share some news stories with our Dachshund mix cousins, like this handsome little guy, a Dachshund-Jack Russel mix named 'Paco' who made headlines this week after Delta airlines lost him in Mexico City.  His humans had just found him as a stray in Puerto Vallarta, vetted him, and was in the process of transporting him back with them to their home in Canada.  Delta initially offered the couple a $200 refund in fees paid for Paco -- as a credit toward a future flight on Delta.  Nice.  "I think that this is completely absurd, as there is no chance of me flying with Delta Air Lines again," his human said.  Delta has offered additional compensations and apologies after the story broke on Consumerist.com.  Source.

How safe is your pet while flying?  Don't miss the troubling Airline Animal Incident Reports at Third Ammendment.com.

Meanwhile, in the Hero department, meet 'Riki,' a three-year-old Dachshund-Pomeranian mix who hails from Olympia, Washington.  He and his human came home on Tuesday to find a burglar breaking one of the windows, when little Riki went into action, chasing the burglar out of the house and down the street!  Way to go Riki!   The city's K9 unit was dispatched and led police to the perp.  Mitzi Lisle, Riki's human, was able to recover her belongings.  “Everyone on the block is calling him killer,” Lisle said Wednesday.

Read more at the News Tribune.



And finally, thank Dog it's Friday, and if you're like us, you're jumping for joy.  So is 'Burt,' seen here, a Dachshund-Rottweiler mix who, according to his human, holds the Long-Jump World Title for his weight class. At 6 seconds into the video clip you can see his world-renown 15-Footer!   Might as well jump, as they say.  Have a great Friday.

Dachshund Hero Alerts Family To Fire Danger!

Meet our newest hero, 3-year-old red smooth 'JoJo,' his human, Eleven-year old Kalen Huntley, and the rest of the Huntley family who hail from Kennewick, Washington.  An electrical fire was smoldering behind an outlet in Kalen's bedroom, and JoJo did everything he could to alert the family - even trying to shove Kalen out of her bed!  Excerpt from The Tri-City Herald:

The couple and three of the kids were home when the outlet in Kalen's room apparently started overheating around 1 a.m. Sunday.

Kalen was asleep in her room with JoJo, who usually sleeps with Kalen until her parents go to bed, Diane Urquhart said.

That night, however, JoJo kept coming out of Kalen's room to bug the adults, but they couldn't figure out what he wanted. He had been fed and had already gone outside, Urquhart said.

"He came out to see us four times, then kept going back into our daughter's room," she said.

Urquhart said JoJo's ears usually tell his story -- if he's happy, hungry or done something wrong. But this time was different.

"These ears we did not recognize," she said. "And his face, if a dog can look worried, he looked worried."

Urquhart heard Kalen stirring and decided to see what was going on, and when she walked in her room she could smell an extremely strong burning rubber smell and saw JoJo on Kalen's bed.

"He had his heinie against the wall and was shoving his nose against her side trying to wake her up and shove her out of the bed," Urquhart said.

Firefighters told the family the outlet, which had a lamp and alarm clock plugged into it, was minutes away from catching fire, Urquhart said.

The Urquharts saved JoJo when he was a puppy and was found drifting in the water at Two Rivers Park, and now "he saved us," Urquhart said.

Read all about the special boy JoJo at The Tri-City Herald.

Dachshund Hero Saves Neighbor From Burning Home

It was one in the morning on January 10th when the red smooth hero named 'Peanut' started pacing at the back door of his Columbia, South Carolina home.  His human certainly didn't know that the neighbor's house was on fire, and neither did Sandra Harrell, the sleeping neighbor, as an electrical shortage had disabled her smoke alarms.  Excerpt from WLTX:

"He's a little chubby, about a 12-pound dachshund," human Cynthia Lockridge laughed. She let Peanut into the backyard, and he drew her attention to Harrell's house. "I saw the back of her house totally engulfed in flames," Lockridge said.
The neighbor stopped a passing car, asking for help from the passerby. The two banged on the window until Harrell woke up. She had to tear the screen and open the window in order to escape the flames and smoke.
She is thankful to have her life, and thankful to the dog she calls "her angel." Still, Harrell has lost her home and everything inside.

We're so proud of you Peanut!  And we're hoping that Miss Harrell can get her life back in order real soon after this tragedy. Read more at WLTX.