We often hear of humans who rise to the occasion and become heroes — sometimes, there comes along a story, an unlikely story where an animal is the hero. I had an experience a few years ago where I encountered such an animal.
At the time, I was living in the country at my parents’ with our two dogs, Nina, a border collie cross, and Chico, our Rottweiler husky cross. We were on a large acreage where the dogs were free to roam and explore a yard that was surrounded by a river and forest.
One morning, my dad noticed Nina running around the yard by herself, which was odd because Nina and Chico were rarely apart.
Later on in the morning, my brother and I went outside to find Nina barking and jumping up and down, she seemed overly anxious for an already hyperactive dog. Jokingly, we asked if someone had fallen in a well, but, when Nina continued to act strangely, we decided to investigate.
When Nina noticed she had our attention, she bolted down the hill to the river. Alarmed, we followed her. When we got to the bottom of the hill, we found that poor Chico had fallen through the ice. His back legs and body were submerged in the freezing water. He was shivering and clutching on to the riverbank with his front legs. Who knew how long he’d been there?
In a panic, we jumped onto the ice to pull him out. This was no easy feat given his size but we eventually managed to get him out and found that he had lost feeling in his hind legs — he just lay there on the ice, immobilized. Nina was beside herself; she couldn’t stop barking and she was incredibly agitated. My brother ran up to the house to get a large blanket so we could lay Chico on it and drag him up the hill.
When we got him in the house, Chico began to warm up and over time fully recovered. However, the entire day he lay in the living room on the blanket, Nina lay beside him, keeping watch, making sure he was safe.
Thinking about animal heroes and that day, I considered the concept of animal heroics. I wondered if these so-called heroes really feel compassion or whether they are responding to instincts. Was Nina fully able to grasp the danger Chico was in or did she just fear for herself after seeing her companion in trouble? Did she understand the effects her actions had on the outcome?
I’ve encountered many stories where service dogs saved the day, where pets without any official training or service animal registration protected children and animals alerted humans to danger. I used to laugh at those made for television movies about animal heroes and stories where animals were humanized to the point of absurdity, but maybe it doesn’t take bipedalism and high level intelligence to show loyalty, maybe the idea of a canine superhero isn’t so far-fetched.
