For the love of dogs. Local tragedy
Today a story both touched and broke my heart.
A 7 year old local boy with autism had wandered off from his home on Saturday with his dog, he didn’t have a jacket or warm clothes on. Later that night we got a snow storm and everyone was so afraid. Search parties looked everywere for him but he was non-verbal so couldn’t respond to calls. Monday afternoon, his dog wandered out of the woods and alerted search parties as to the boy’s location. They found him and he was amazingly still alive but was unconscious with severe hypothermia. They were shocked he was alive at all after two and a half days in the freezing weather with no jacket. They flew him to the IWK hospital here in the city to try and save him, sadly he died this morning. My heart is broken for his family, lossing their son, and so close to Christmas.
My heart was warmed however in that they think he lived as long as he did because his dog lay across him and kept him warm, only leaving his side when he had stopped breathing.
This dog is a hero in this boy’s story, he obviously did everything he could to keep the boy safe. Stories like this come to light all the time, and everytime they do I feel my heart swell more and more for these incredible animals. My Oliver is truly the most loyal and loving animal I have ever had in my world. He protects me and licks me when I am sad or sick. It never ceases to amaze me the level of loyaltee you can see between a dog and the people who love it.
Posted on December 8, 2009, in Uncategorized and tagged animal love, dogs, local news. Bookmark the permalink. 4 Comments.
my dog has changed my life. I love her so intensely it constantly amazes me, and she us. I am not surprised by this behaviour, and humbled that human beings have done something to deserve this loyalty and level of love. 🙂
This is just it. I had seen it with other people, but never having had a dog myself I had no idea. Now it’s like I really look forward to morning’s cause when that alarm goes off, Oliver’s enthusiasm for each day is highly contagious. How can it not be when greeted with so many kisses? He is just like ecstatic to wake up while I am groan and roll myself out of bed haha. I love him so deeply. They just love so purely and unconditionaly, it’s amazing and wonderful.
I saw that story and it made me really sad too. I feel so bad for the family and for that poor child. I didn’t know it was local to you. Truly, so very very sad.
He was from Cape Breton, so not ‘really’ locally, like 4 hours away to be exact, but same province and close enough to hit home.