Amazing Animal Stories

Buddy, a german shepherd, specially trained in Michigan to call 911 saved his owner's life when the man had a seizure.

A recording of the 911 call, the 911 operator heard Buddy whimpering and barking. The dispatcher,
"Hello, this is 911. Hello ... Can you hear me? Is there somebody there you can give the phone to?," dispatcher, Chris Trott asked.

Police were sent to owner, Stalnaker's home. After about three minutes, Buddy can be heard barking loudly inside Stalnaker's home when officers arrived.

Scottsdale police Sgt. Mark Clark said Stalnaker spent two days in a hospital recovering from the seizure. "It's pretty incredible," Clark said. "Even the veteran dispatchers hadn't ever heard of anything like this."

Clark said that police are dispatched whenever 911 is called, but Stalnaker's address was flagged in Scottsdale's, AZ system with a notification that a trained assistance dog with the ability to call 911 lives there with his owner.

Stalnaker adopted Buddy at 8 weeks of age from Wayland, Michigan-based Paws with a Cause, which trains assistance dogs to get the phone if Stalnaker ever began to have seizure symptoms.

Buddy, at the time of the 911 call was 18 months old and able press programmed buttons until a 911 operator is on the line. This is not the first time that Buddy has made lifesaving calls on behalf of Stalnaker. Buddy has made two other 911 calls when Stalnaker was having seizures.

Stalnaker's seizures are the result of a head injury he suffered about 10 years ago during a military training exercise.

Cindy Hernandez's was playing fetch with her lab-chow mix dog Bob at her dock in Tampa, Florida when she decided to take a dip and cool off from the hot summer day.

Hernandez says she knew she was in trouble the instant she saw the gator: "I heard a sound. It sounded like a boat cutting through the water. And I looked back toward my left, and this alligator literally was out of the water. His body was just above the water. He was moving so fast, he was cutting the water, making a sound. The only thing I could think of was to try to distract him. So I started smacking the water and I started screaming. And he just kept coming. And he wouldn't stop."

This is when Bob dropped his toy and came up behind me, he got right in front of me, just before the gator got to me. The alligator took Bob down right in front of me and rolled over one time, it happened that fast. Hernandez says it literally only took a few seconds and Bob was gone but he had saved her life.

Hernandez said, "I got out of the water, got on to the dock and just watched the water waiting for Bob to surface. The gator came up about five minutes later right at the exact spot he went down, with Bob in his mouth, and he just stared at me."

Hernandez says she called the gator patrol and when they actually went out after the gator if came after them. They threw a line in, and had the gator within 15 minutes. Authorities put the gator down thereafter.

Hernandez says she'll never swim there again: "My life has been changed. This was my paradise, my sanctuary, that's all changed."