A Connecticut couple said that their dog began acting strangely, while their daughter slept in her nursery.
However, little did they know, the dog would save the young girl’s life when she stopped breathing in the middle of the night several hours later.
A Boston terrier named Henry seemed to be acting strangely, Henry repeatedly barged into the nursery and woke the baby, one night after Jeff and Kelly Dowling’s baby girl had gone to sleep. But the couple would quickly be thankful for the dog’s seemingly odd behavior.
And After going through a life-threatening scenario involving their daughter, Jeff, and Kelly Dowling were counting their blessings and praising their lucky stars, as well as their cherished dog Henry.
Kelly, an author who goes by the pen name Kelly Andrews, soon discovered why Henry was so obsessed with waking the little girl. “He was head-butting the door open and going into her room and standing there and every time I shooed him away, he would go back in as soon as my back was turned,” Kelly Dowling told Good Morning America.
Kelly posted on Twitter, “Last night the dog kept breaking into the nursery and waking the baby. She’s been sick, and I was getting so fed up with him. Until she stopped breathing. We spent the night in the hospital. I don’t know what would have happened if he hadn’t woken her. We don’t deserve dogs.”
Their infant daughter “wasn’t clearing her airway. She started to turn blue and go rigid and she just really couldn’t — she couldn’t get air, couldn’t get any oxygen,” the Connecticut mom told GMA.
“Thanks for all the well wishes, everyone. The baby is doing much better today and we are home with Henry, who bravely held the fort all night even though he is scared of the dark,” following the family’s near-death experience, numerous well-wishers offered support via Kelly’s social media post, which received over 240,000 likes. Kelly commented in reaction to the outpouring of affection for Henry.
Kelly replied to one comment on Twitter, praising Henry. The grateful mom also gave a shout-out to Connecticut Children’s Medical Center. “Henry is 100 percent my first baby. And he’s such an important part of the family! Since this thread is still doing numbers I would like to shout out the ER department at @ctchildrens for being literal heroes. Not just for our LO but night after night, patient after patient. They go above and beyond in their care, and it shows.”
“We couldn’t figure out for the longest time why my service dog kept going into my parents room several times a night sniffing my dad’s face and nudging him repeatedly. They always pushed her away and she would still circle back. She stopped as soon as he got his pacemaker,” Molly, a Twitter user, wrote, as others joined in the chorus of adoration for Henry by contributing their own amazing tales.
“My dog kept jumping up on the bed. I had my son in bed with me. He had epilepsy and something didn’t seem right. Well, a few minutes later he started having a massive seizure. The dog sensed it coming on. I am so grateful that he woke me and I wasn’t dead asleep when it happened,” another Twitter user commented.
Dogs are used by humans to sniff out drugs and bombs, but did you know that because of their keener sense of smell, they can also pick up on human illnesses? Dogs are well renowned for being able to hear and smell things that their human partners may miss, and many of them end up becoming service animals for people with epilepsy and other disorders.
Dogs can know when a loved one is suffering a migraine, heart attack, cancer, seizure, narcolepsy, or low blood sugar because they can sense the little change in chemicals in the ill person’s body, according to WebMD. Why else would they be referred to as “man’s best friend”?
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Sources: TapHaps, WebMD, GoodMorningAmerica, NewsWeek