You Got to Have Faith
From the AP:
Washington Dog Phones 911 for Fallen Owner.
Faith, a Washington State Rottweiler, Phones 911 After Owner Falls Out of Wheelchair
RICHLAND, Wash. Oct 29, 2004 -- Faith the service dog phoned 911 when her owner fell out of her wheelchair and barked urgently into the receiver until a dispatcher sent help. Then the 4-year-old Rottweiler unlocked the front door so the responding police officer could come in.
"I sensed there was a problem on the other end of the 911 call," said dispatcher Jenny Buchanan, who answered the call from Faith.
"The dog was too persistent in barking directly into the phone receiver," Buchanan said at Benton County's Southeast Communications Center. "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 Leana Beasley, 45, who suffers grand mal seizures. . . .
Guided by experts at the Assistance Dog Club of Puget Sound, Beasley helped train Faith herself.
"She's a real trooper," Beasley said Thursday. . . .
The day of the fall, Faith "had been acting very clingy, wanting to be touching me all day long," Beasley said.
The dog, whose sensitive nose can detect changes in Beasley's body chemistry, is trained to alert her owner to impending seizures before they happen.
After the call from Faith, Buchanan dispatched Richland police Cpl. Scott Morrell. He arrived to see Faith and her predecessor, now-retired service dog Bronson, peering at him from Beasley's front window.
Morrell knocked, and then realized the door was unlocked.
"Faith had already opened the door for him," Beasley said. The dog has been trained to recognize police officers, firefighters and medical personnel as "special friends with cookies."
Full story here (until ABC pulls the link :-()
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=210508 (external link)