- Ask yourself this one question,
would you and your dog be able to fight off
a ferocious pack of coyotes?
I'm about to tell you a true story of a hero dog
that did just that for his best friend.
Hey, I'm Rocky Kanaka and this is Animal Tales.
You might have heard me say before
that often when you're rescuing a dog,
it's turns out they're actually rescuing you.
In this case, Sako, Joseph's dog, did actually rescue him.
He saved his life.
This all happened in Canada, at Kanaka Bar.
Now, Joseph, he's camping with his family.
They're actually fishing
and it's getting towards the end of the day
and they decide, okay, let's pack up.
Let's start heading back.
Joseph, let me tell you a little bit about him.
He is a fun loving kid.
He loves his family and he loves his dog.
That is absolutely his best friend.
They jump in the back of the truck.
It's been a long day.
They're driving home.
It's cooling off a little bit, but man, the sun feels good.
And Joseph in an interview even said,
the sun was hitting him and he started to fall asleep.
And the next thing you know,
is probably a lot of of people's worst nightmare.
He wakes up to going off the road
and then complete blackout.
It's kind of a slow daze.
He doesn't know what happened, but he knows he can't move.
He's not paralyzed, but something's wrong.
He's fighting to try to figure out what that is
but he just can't get the fogginess out of his eyes.
But one thing he does
is he tries to start checking his surroundings.
He can move his head a little bit.
And the comforting thing that happens right away
is he sees Sako right there next to him.
I imagine that's about all he can muster
and then he slips back out of consciousness.
He is, at this point, going into shock
and he doesn't know this.
What he doesn't realize is his collarbone is broken,
his femur is broken.
There's so many things wrong with his body.
That would make sense
because the truck had actually gone off the road,
gone down a steep ravine,
thrown Joseph and Sako out of the back of the truck
and everyone in the truck, they didn't make it.
Joseph comes to again.
Every time it's just a little bit more clear
and now it's getting dark and he thinks it's getting cold
but he's going into shock.
And so his body is actually getting cold.
And he said he even tried to grab some rocks
to put them on him almost, I guess, maybe as a blanket.
But I don't know if you've ever had any rocks
but they will not act as a blanket.
Passes out again, wakes up again, but even colder.
And now he's waking up from violently shaking.
Joseph even said he was able to reach down and feel his leg
and he could actually feel the bone.
And he basically gave up.
Sako, when he was thrown out of the truck,
I'll bet he landed okay.
Maybe he was able to roll.
He is unharmed at this point.
Now what happens next
is one of the most unbelievable things of this story.
Because when Sako sees Joseph wake up
from the violent shaking of the cold
he knows exactly what to do.
Sako jumped on top of Joseph as a blanket.
Now Sako, he is a King Shepherd.
Now King Shepherds,
they are a lot like German Shepherds.
In fact, most people would see a King Shepherd
and just think, oh, this is a German Shepherd
but here's why a King Shepherd is so important.
Especially in colder territories,
like Canada and Alaska
and some of these wilderness territories
because they can have in the lineage, Alaskan Malamute,
Great Pyrenees,
these big dogs that are good at staying warm in cold areas.
They're good at roaming, they're working dogs.
They make great police dogs.
They aim to please.
And they're highly trainable.
And why that's just so amazing
is Sako doesn't know that Joseph's bone is broken
but what he can sense is that something is off.
He can smell the chemical imbalance.
He can sense the shivering.
Joseph is a part of his pack
and is a part of his family
and he'll do whatever it takes to protect him.
Just that extra little hope of, you know what,
it's gonna be okay.
So he falls asleep,
probably thinking the next time he'll wake up
is when the sun comes up, but that's not what happened.
He actually wakes up to the sound of bushes rustling.
What is in the bushes?
Maybe it's a bunny rabbit, but probably not.
There's probably more stuff out there
trying to get you than not.
And even if Joseph is good in the wilderness
he has no ability to get up and fight back or run away.
But guess what he does have?
His best friend and Sako's already on it.
He smells it. He sees it.
He knows what to do.
And he immediately jumps into action.
He bounces into the bushes.
Joseph has no idea what's going on.
There's rustling in the bushes.
And then everything goes silent.
Finally, Sako comes back
and Joseph said that the only thing Sako had
was a bite on him.
Only, Sako was probably
in a massive fight with multiple coyotes.
Coyotes love to gang up on dogs.
They try to confuse them
but Sako is big and I'll bet he fought off all those coyotes
and only came back with one bite.
It's the next morning, the sun is rising.
Sako is still there.
It doesn't seem like the bite is anything too harmful.
He's gonna be just fine.
And now Joseph is just hoping that someone will rescue him.
The concern is he's all the way down in a ravine.
I mean it's 20 plus feet down in the ravine
and he can't get up to go to the road.
So even if he hears a car passing by,
how does he get their attention?
At this point, he sees the sun kind of passing over him
and he doesn't know what time it is exactly
but he knows the day is passing by
and no one is coming to save him.
Another day goes by and another day goes by.
Three days have gone by now.
And at this point he doesn't think he's gonna make it.
Just in time, he hears his cousin yelling out for him
and he yells back and they find him and they rescue him
and Sako's so excited.
And Joseph is obviously excited and exhausted.
Most amazing thing though, is Sako saved him.
I'm a pet expert
and I have personally been saved by a dog in my life.
And if you are out in the wild,
my tip is to pay attention to your dog.
Really pay attention to what they're doing
because it's just within their nature to survive
and they can help guide you.
And if you really let them lead the way
they can save your life.
Here's what happened when a brave dog
swimming through a flood did
when he saw an autistic boy clinging to a pole.
Waverly, Tennessee experienced historic flooding
on August 21st, 2021.
The area was suddenly hit
with a massive 17 inches of rain in no time at all.
For comparison's sake,
here's what six inches of rain looks like.
Now imagine almost three times as much water.
17 inches of rain means there would be areas of water
that are collecting in pools where it would be over my head.
and I'm six foot four inches.
It was so bad that 20 people didn't make it.
250 plus homes were completely destroyed.
Countless businesses.
It was total mayhem.
And unfortunately, while this was going on
there was one little boy, he was young,
so to protect him, let's call him Grayson for this story.
Grayson was separated from his family.
What's particularly bad about that is Grayson is autistic.
And so communication is even harder for him
especially in this extreme situation.
Now it's unclear what happened next.
And I'm gonna fill in some of the gaps
with what I think happened after researching this story.
But we know that Grayson got swept into the creek.
Whether he fell in there or swept into there
and the water quickly
and violently rushed him down the stream,
wherever the water was trying to make its way.
He likely was bumping into things,
trying to keep his head above the water.
Finally, Grayson was able to latch onto a pole
and this poor little boy with all of this might
was doing everything he could to hold onto this pole.
But if you've ever been in any amount of water turbulence
or pressure, it's really strong,
especially because the water keeps rising.
So as the water's rising
he's having to completely release his grip, readjust,
and that's just spells disaster
for water being able to sweep you away.
All kinds of bad things can happen, right?
If a power line goes down
it can put electricity in the water
because at this point entire cars are even being lifted up
and being floated down this river like they're toy boats.
Now completely separate story,
I'm gonna bring these two together here in a minute,
but couple blocks away, half mile away,
there is a family that has a Great Pyrenees Labrador mix.
This dog's name Cooper.
Now I specifically mentioned his breed type
because this is really gonna come into play.
If you don't know anything about Great Pyrenees,
they are one of the most majestic breeds of dogs.
And if there is a ranking system for them
they would get four paws up for being the protectors
of families, of farms, of other animals.
That's what they do.
They protect.
They've been around for so long.
Fun fact.
There are actually fossils that date all the way back
to sometime between 1800 BC and 1000 BC.
At the time they were considered a peasant's dog
because they guarded the livestock.
But because these dogs were just so amazing
and so magnificent, they became really popular
with French royals in the Renaissance time period.
In fact, in 1675 King Louie,
I think the 14th declared the Great Pyrenees dog,
the dog of royalty.
I tell you all that because one, it's just fun facts,
but two, it's gonna really come into play.
That is half of who Cooper is.
The other half is a Labrador mix of something.
So Cooper was staying with some family
and a tree fell on their house
and he was immediately separated.
He was swept out into this flash flood river
that was moving rapidly.
If you put yourself in the mind of Cooper,
he's a six year old dog.
And all of a sudden he has been separated from his family.
He's never been in a flood.
He doesn't know what's going on and he's just swimming now.
He's just fighting for his life.
And what happened next is so amazing
and it's why dogs should just be protected at all costs.
And they're so awesome
because he sees Grayson
and immediately he must have made the decision
that you know what, this is why I'm here.
And the fact that he's also half Labrador
makes him an amazing swimmer.
What's he do?
He swims over to Grayson.
He gets Grayson to hold onto him
and he keeps swimming, trying to get to safety.
Thank goodness some boaters saw him.
They get over there and he swims to them
and they were able to save Grayson and Cooper.
Now the flood started to subside.
Grayson was reunited with his family
but nobody knows who Cooper's family is.
They have no way to identify him.
I think maybe he didn't have a microchip or a collar on.
And he was taken to the Waverly Animal Clinic
where they wanted to check him out, make sure he was okay.
He was a hero, but you know,
they wanted to give him the hero of treatment for sure.
And so the Waverly Animal Clinic, they said, you know what?
Let's put this on Facebook.
Let's put this story on Facebook and ask people to share it.
It got back to his family
and they were able to reunite.
Simple fact, dogs rule.
They really do,
but it's really neat to see
how fast they can overcome incredible adversity.
What is more amazing than a service dog?
I'll tell you.
I would be hard pressed to figure out
something that is better than a service dog.
This next story that I'm gonna tell you about
is about a dog that saved their owner's life
by calling 911, dialing 911.
It started in Philadelphia with Maria Cologne
and her dog, Yolanda.
Maria is blind.
Maria likely wouldn't be able to function
through her day to day activities without Yolanda.
They are best friends.
So Yolanda is a Golden Lab.
Now Golden Labs are America's dog.
Like, it is countless times
the number one dog breed in America.
When you ask people, what kind of dog do you want?
They want a Golden Lab.
There are reasons for that that are very understandable.
Golden Labs are energetic.
They're puppy-like.
Like they can work through the entire day
where like an American Bulldog
would probably run out of energy by like,
I don't know, 10:15 AM.
I know because I'm currently fostering one
and all he does all day is sleep.
Not the case with Golden Labradors.
But what happened this night was particularly scary.
You have Maria, she's asleep in her bed.
Yolanda is right there by her.
And Maria wakes up to the smell of smoke.
This is really bad if you're blind
because you can't really smell where smoke is coming from.
And I could imagine it would be really scary
because you can't go explore to find that fire.
What you've got to do is try to get out
but you don't know if the fire's in the way.
You are now 100% reliant on your service dog,
if you have one.
Let's get into the mind of Yolanda, the dog,
the service dog.
She wakes up, she smells the smoke way before Maria does.
And she knows now this is her time to jump into action
and do what she is here to do.
And that is to help her mom.
They have a command that they've worked on,
that they rehearsed time and time again
because this is the command that will save your life.
At this point, the smoke was so bad
Maria was struggling to breathe
but then clarity comes over Maria
and she knows it's time to shout the command
that they have practiced again and again.
She says, "Danger!"
and immediately Yolanda jumps into action.
- [News Reporter] Yolanda pressed the emergency call button
on Cologne's phone.
- I hear the phone tick-tick-tick and she growled,
and I say, oh my Lord, she called the police.
- She's worried about her life
and she's in amazement that her dog is calling the police.
But I couldn't blame her.
I would be the same way.
If my dog, Flip, started dialing the phone
and called the police because I was in trouble,
no matter what pain I was in or what I was going through
I would probably go Flip, good boy, Flip!
But it still took time for the firefighters to get there
and it was turning into a really bad situation.
The good news is the firefighters got there in time.
The situation was so bad
that they can't go back to their home.
They have no home now.
They went a hospital and Maria was pretty good.
She got a small treatment.
Yolanda spent the night at the vet hospital
because she had a little damage to her cornea
and had to be treated for smoke inhalation
to make sure she was okay.
But guess what, they both got out.
They had nowhere to go.
The neat thing is the Red Cross helped
but so did the Red Paw.
And so they both got the help that they needed.
And when they reunited,
Maria was just so happy to see Yolanda.
She calls her her little baby.
She's her mama.
And you can just tell there's such a neat love,
a neat bond between those two.
Again, as a pet expert, train your dog.
It could save your life.
Yolanda knew how to dial the phone.
It's a special little phone.
It's a little different.
It's made so that animals, dogs,
service dogs can actually dial it.
It's not like an iPhone where face ID has to work.
Nonetheless, it's still unbelievable.
And I would like to say, Yolanda is a hero.
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Would your dog save you?
have you ever heard of a dog doing something like this?
Are there other stories that I should be telling?
Let me know about them.