It’s in our name – hero – and here at ProPetHero we are all about training you to be a pet’s hero. We aren’t the only heroes though, one might be at your feet begging for food, or purring over your shoulder right now. Our pets are our heroes.
I share my life with 3 dogs, a cat and 10 chickens. My life is BUSY, most of it spent in front of a computer screen. What makes my day is when one of my furry friends comes waltzing in and rests their head on my leg – we call this “heavy head” in my household, or as my husband has queued it to be called “chin” (no, the chickens do not do this, yet!). My blood pressure lowers, my thoughts become clearer and with a few pets on their soft head, the world seems good again – until I look at the mountain of lists and such smeared all over my desk, ugh back to work.
While millions of pets bring a sense of calm and make life more purposeful for their humans, there are those pets out there that are actually the true definitions of heroes – they have gone out of their way to save human lives. This isn’t just our amazing search and rescue dogs that are highly skilled and trained these can also be the cats and dogs that beg us for food and shred our toilet paper.
I’d like to give two such examples of these fuzzy heroes today, one a cat, the other a pup.
Blake with his owner Glen, (c) BRANDON WADE
The first story involves a cat that already had a human hero by his side. Blake was rescued by a gentleman named Glen Schallman who suffers from three types of brain diseases that cause frequent seizures. Mr. Schallman never adopted Blake the black cat with the intent to save his life, but rather just make it better. Blake has more than lived up to his end of the deal. Blake helps wake Schallman up from seizures by biting his toes and is believed to play a big role in the reason why Schallman is the oldest surviving human with his condition. To read more about Blake and Schallman’s story, checkout this article.
Another hero I want to recognize is a puppy that hails from Siberia who helped rescue his little human girl from 11 days lost in the Siberian woods – yep you read that right, 11 days!! The 3-yr old had gotten lost when she followed her father into the woods and while the pup stayed by her side for 9 days, he decided by that time it was his duty to go get help, which he did! He went and found people and lead them back to her. Read more here.
Puppy rescuer and human rescue team (c) Sakha Republic Rescue Service
Pets astound me; they blow my mind with their loyalty, compassion, sympathy and most amazingly, their heroisms. At the very least we owe it to our furry little guys to be their heroes too. Knowing what to do when something is wrong with them – heck evening knowing how to recognize when something is wrong is just as important as knowing how to act. Because they are your heroes and just one day might save your life, you owe it to them to know how to save theirs. Take a pet first aid & CPR class today and learn how to be a pet’s hero.