Charlene D’Avanzo: Some heroes are famous–think Alexi Navalny–but most are not.
For example, there’s the former New York Giants player Cole Ferrand who grabbed an extension ladder and pulled a neighbor from a burning roof as flames shot skyward. David Phung from Louisiana is another. Phung jumped into raging Baton Rouge water to rescue a woman sinking her car to certain death. He also saved her dog.
Speaking of dogs, they, too, are heroes sometimes.
There’s Leala, the Staffordshire Terrier who raced for help when her two-year-old owner fell from a dam; Buddy, the lab who licked his owner awake to save her from a house fire; and Brian, the pit bull who valiantly fought off three other dogs to protect his owner, Debbie.
Here are several books that feature amazing dogs:
- In Dogs with Jobs: Inspirational Tales of the World’s Hardest Working
Dogs author Laura Greaves tells true stories of incredible working dogs. Two are Molly, the diabetes alert dog whose round-the-clock job is to keep her two young owners healthy and Daisy the Collie mix who is a full-time guide dog to another blind dog.
- Judy: A Dog In A Million by Damien Lewis is the story of an English pointer and
the only animal POW of WWII. Judy, who dragged men to safety from torpedoed ships and scavenged food for starving inmates of a Japanese POW camp, was cherished by Allied servicemen who fought to survive alongside her.
- • Horses and humans have also worked together for thousands of years. In 1860, for example, when telephones and fax machines didn’t exist, the Pony Express horse relay kept the mail moving day and night and cut down the time for mail to reach California from the east to eight days. There were over 150 relay stations and riders changed horses 6 or more times. For more horse stories take a look
at Heroes, True Stories Of Amazing Horses by Kate Petty.
I love this. And even physically unheroic dogs like my Fitz are pretty special. He comes over to lean on me every time I get in heated political conversations! He’d better be prepared for the next few months LOL.
My cats slink off and wait for the storm to blow over. No help there!
Charlene…as always, thank you for this post. I plan to locate all three books for my granddaughter and I to read together. Can’t wait to find Judy’s story. I always been drawn to animal stories, even if they are fictional. Biography of a Grizzly has haunted me for decades. Couldn’t finish Watership Down. Tried to read Where the Red Fern Grows out loud to my husband’s daughter when she was younger. Got so choked up I couldn’t finish… Their trials and tribulations get me every time. Animals are just so much better than your average human.
Wonderful post! I had a German Shorthaired Pointer who found children. Naturally. Parents used to come for him when their kids wandered off and he never disappointed. I tried to have him qualified as an SAR dog. He washed out because he was petrified of loud noises. Instead I had him trained as a therapy dog and he spent many happy hours comforting hospice patients in a nearby nursing home. I never knew how he knew what he knew, but he always knew and he would crawl up on the bed and not leave until his job was done. Amazing dog.
great suggestions –