Thought this was interesting

The Associated Press
Updated: 6:43 p.m. ET Oct. 29, 2004



RICHLAND, Wash. - Leana Beasley has faith that a dog is man’s best friend.

Faith, a 4-year-old Rottweiler, phoned 911 when Beasley fell out of her wheelchair and barked urgently into the receiver until a dispatcher sent help. Then the service dog unlocked the front door for the police officer.

“I sensed there was a problem on the other end of the 911 call,” said dispatcher Jenny Buchanan. “The dog was too persistent in barking directly into the phone receiver. I knew she was trying to tell me something.”

Faith is trained to summon help by pushing a speed-dial button on the phone with her nose after taking the receiver off the hook, said her owner, Beasley, 45, who suffers grand mal seizures.

Guided by experts at the Assistance Dog Club of Puget Sound, Beasley helped train Faith herself.

The day of the fall, Faith “had been acting very clingy, wanting to be touching me all day long,” Beasley said Thursday.

The dog, whose sensitive nose can detect changes in Beasley’s body chemistry, is trained to alert her owner to impending seizures.

But that wasn’t what was happening on Sept. 7, and Faith apparently wasn’t sure how to communicate the problem. During Beasley’s three-week hospital stay, doctors determined her liver was not properly processing her seizure medication.

WOW. That is SO amazing. Animals are so remarkable, and unless you hear stories like this one, it can be easy to underestimate their intellect, capabilities, and capacity for love. I feel like I need to go now and plant thousands of kisses on each of my eight animals!!

that is an awesome story!

sarah---- 8 animals?!?!?!?! what do you have?

we have a chinese pug (princess, she's black and getting old) and then we have moe (a blondish colored chihuahua, he just celebrated his first birthday a couple weeks ago).

Believe it or not, Shelly, I have 7 cats and an Italian Greyhound mix! -- almost all of them rescues. * Disclaimer: Honest to God, my house does NOT smell like cats -- we have these amazing litter boxes that noone's ever heard of; they hook up to the toilet and water washes, rinses, and then blow-dries the acrylic "litter" pellets -- so you can clean the box several times a day with just the push of a button and then a quick flush. $300 per box, but worth every penny. *

I love every one of them like they're my children -- it's a **** of a lot of work, though, to keep the house nice and everybody happy and well-adjusted. I had my baby, Simone, then when I got together with Lorraine, he joined Tiny and Bashful. We then rescued Gracie and Boo, followed by Bughead, then Piccina. Later, when I got laid off and was devastated and depressed (and busily gaining around 60 more pounds,) we got Louie, our little miniature greyhound mix. Oh yeah, and there are a few fish as well! We like to say that these kids were "unplanned." I'll go on to say our "kitty tubes" are now well and truly tied! God I love them though... <------ times 8!

Sarah - WHAT IS THE NAME OF THIS AMAZING CAT LITTER BOX?!?!?!!

That is sooooo frickin cool!

I want to know too! Where Can I get one? I've got 3 cats and 3 kittens.

The brand was Litter Free, and we got them (we bought 2) from PetSmart when they were testing the product in some of their upscale market stores, but I'm not sure they're still available to purchase! The company lost all of its stock when their ship sunk coming back to the states with all of their new stock -- and they weren't insured. So now Petsmart is apparently looking into buying their patent and producing it themselves....it's really a sad story, because it's such an excellent product. Our store was out of them once we finally decided to give in and give the product a try (for over 700 bucks with tax, we made sure we could return them if they didn't work) -- so we ended up driving an hour and a half each way to another store that was only too happy to sell us a couple.

I swear, it works so well, I'd buy the rights to the product myself if I had the money to invest -- it's worth millions if it's marketed properly. Anyway, ask about it at your local Petsmart (NOT Petco) if you have one near you.......I'm sure they'll move forward eventually. It's a really well-made product, and the stores that offered them sold out, so I know it must have done well in their test.

Sorry!