(Part 2)
Animals not only warn of impending crime, but they also jump right in and defend humans from rapists, thieves, and murderers, said Kristin Von Kreisler in the book The Compassion of Animals.
“What is so astounding about their defense is the creatures’ willingness to take on impossible opponents and be brutalized by them. The animals’ concern wins out over their instinct for self-preservation,” said Von Kreisler.
Von Kreisler shared the stories of three dogs who saved humans:
• “Tinkerbelle, thirteen-pound mutt in Indianapolis, was watching over ten-year-old Tim Dawson, who was sick and staying home from school. When a man broke into the house, tiny Tinkerbelle grabbed the intruder’s pant leg with her teeth, leaped on him, and bit his hand. Her ferocity sent him running.
• One night, Meatball, a German shepherd, followed Mrs. Robert Keith into her greenhouse in Morris, Alabama. After she’d been talking with her mother on the telephone, Keith had heard the quiet click of someone picking up her phone’s extension there. Keith and Meatball found a man. The dog lunged at him and chased him to his car. Before the burglar could close the door, Meatball bit his leg and hung on – even when the man put his car in gear and sped away. As the car dragged Meatball along the road, the asphalt cracked his toenails and bruised his paw pads, but he persevered in protecting Keith.
• Brandy, a springer spaniel puppy, attacked a teenage burglar who had broken into her Tucson, Arizona home. The teenager shot the woman who lived there, then turned on Brandy and shot the dog in the chest, jaw, belly and legs. Weak from loss of blood and in excruciating pain, the puppy was still determined to save the woman. Brandy chased the burglar out of the house, where the police shot and killed him. The dog’s wounds gradually healed.”
Here is another story from Von Kreisler of how a loyal dog saved his lady owner from a violent intruder:
“Donald Morgan, a retired policeman, pretended to slap his wife, Pat. She pretended to be in horrible pain; she screamed an agonizing, desperate scream and ‘tried’ to shove away her husband.
Their German shepherd Yogi heard the ‘attack’ and came running. Growling and baring his teeth, he made his point: Donald had better stop the slapping. When he didn’t, Yogi pulled his arm and nipped his hand. When that didn’t stop him, Yogi jumped on Donald and let him know that he was about to go after him in earnest.
‘I wonder what would happen if a man actually attacked me?’ Pat asked Donald after one of these training sessions. ‘Do you think Yogi would really fight someone off?’
“I don’t know,’ Donald answered.
He and Pat hoped they would never have to find out.
When Donald died, Pat continued living with Yogi in an isolated lake house near Abilene, Texas. One night after getting ready for bed, she put Yogi in his fence pen and started back toward her bedroom. Suddenly she heard someone at the front door. Since it was locked, she figured she’d have plenty of time to bring Yogi back into the house if she needed protection. She picked up her portable phone to call the police if necessary and went to the door to see who was there. A man was standing in the living room.
Pat was so alarmed that she dropped the phone while dialing ‘0.’ She ran toward the back door to get Yogi, but the man stopped her. Without a word, he slammed his fist into her face so hard that she reeled back into her bedroom.
Sprawled on the floor, she told herself, ‘I’m going to die. Donald died first last year, and now it’s my turn.’
Yogi was her only chance to live. Fenced in his pen, he would have to use all his strength to get to her —if he could get to her at all. As she screamed for Yogi, the man fell on her and hit her again and again. He yanked at her pajama top and tried to rip it off. Pat kicked, clawed, and yelled.
‘Yogi! Yogi!’
‘Hello? Hello? Hello!!’ The operator’s voice from the phone on the floor punctuated Pat’s shouts.
The man beat her into silence. He wrapped a pair of panty hose around her neck and choked her. With no oxygen, she grew weak and faint. When she tried to call Yogi one last time, the man put a knife to her throat and cut into her. Blood trickled down her neck.
Outside, Yogi heard Pat’s call. He leaped over his chain-link fence and barreled toward the house. He then threw himself through a screen door onto the porch. When a heavy metal storm door blocked his way into the kitchen, he backed up and hurled himself against the metal again and again until it caved in and the locks broke.
Yogi tore into the bedroom. He growled, barked, and leaped on all fours onto the man. As the man kicked him away, Yogi yelped in pain but continued his attack. The power of the dog’s body knocked the man off Pat. Jumping up, he tried to escape, but Yogi bit his leg and kept his teeth clumped into it.
Pat, knowing she was safe now that Yogi was there, lost consciousness. When she came to, her dog was still trying to protect her by growling and barking— but this time, at the police. The telephone operator had heard Pat scream and notified them.
‘Mrs. Morgan. Mrs. Morgan,’ one of the policemen shouted from the window. “Your dog won’t let us in to help you.’
Yogi stood over Pat and growled ferociously.
She managed to take hold of his collar. ‘It’s okay, Yogi,’ she whispered. ‘These are the good guys. Let them in.’
Since Yogi had grown up seeing Donald and his colleagues in policemen’s uniforms, he quickly realized that the men were friends when they came inside. H stood by and let them take care of Pat. Around the house, they found pieces of blood-soaked cloth, which Yogi had ripped from the assailant’s pants and shirt.
That day Yogi proved that he was capable of defending Pat in a real attack. Although the assailant was never caught, Yogi was ready for him if he returned. But he never came back.’