http://www.tri-cityherald.com/901/story/118381.html
Saturday, Mar. 15, 2008
Hero dog saves owner, loses eyesight
By Michelle Dupler, Herald staff writer
BENTON CITY -- Dorothy Giddings knows heroes come in all shapes and sizes.
The Benton City woman knows because her biggest hero is a 2-pound black Yorkshire terrier named Peggy Sue who saved Dorothy's life but lost her own eyesight in the process.
Peggy Sue lay cradled with her head in the crook of Dorothy's elbow on Friday, as the little Yorkie's mistress told how the dog alerted her napping husband that she was having a seizure.
It was March 5, and Dorothy, 77, and Gary Giddings, 69, were in their side-by-side velour recliners -- Dorothy's is pink and Gary's is blue -- to watch a little afternoon television.
Dorothy told Gary she thought she might take a nap. Gary picked up a book and dozed off himself with Peggy Sue sitting in his lap.
But he was startled awake when Peggy Sue leaped into Dorothy's lap and started barking in her face.
He looked over and saw Dorothy leaned back in the chair, shaking uncontrollably.
"She had quit breathing and her lips were turning purple," he said. "I don't know how long she'd been like that."
Gary yelled for the couple's downstairs tenant to call 911 and pounded on Dorothy's chest to get her breathing again.
With paramedics on the way, he let the couple's other dog, a black border collie with a body like a barrel named Cassie, inside so she wouldn't stop them on the steps up to the house.
But Cassie, who the pair said always has been protective of Dorothy, saw Peggy Sue yapping at the woman and assumed the smaller dog was attacking their mistress.
Cassie lunged forward and seized Peggy Sue's head in her jaws. She bit so hard that the Yorkie's eyes bulged out from the pressure.
"It was like 'boom!' " Gary said, waving his arm across the room toward Dorothy's recliner.
Gary pried Peggy Sue from the collie's mouth and locked her in a bathroom for protection. He noticed one eye was dangling on the dog's cheek.
But Dorothy was still in trouble and he had to make sure she survived before he could help the dog.
Paramedics got Dorothy to the hospital, where she learned the seizure happened because of scar tissue left behind in her brain when a benign tumor was removed two years ago. She's now on anti-seizure medication to stop it from happening again.
While Gary and Dorothy were at the hospital, the downstairs tenant, who the couple think of as family, rushed Peggy Sue to an emergency veterinarian in Pasco.
The vet sewed the Yorkie's eyes shut -- at a cost of almost $1,100 -- but the couple have been told Peggy Sue likely will lose one eye and be at least partially blind in the other. Further surgery likely will cost hundreds of dollars more for the couple, who said they live on a fixed income.
Despite the expense, the couple never considered having Peggy Sue put down.
"She's our little lifesaver," Gary said.
They also don't blame Cassie, the border collie, for attacking the smaller dog.
"She was trying to protect her mama, too," Gary said. "She just didn't know how to go about it."
Dorothy said the dog seems to be adjusting to blindness. She still wags her tail at their voices and gets around the house pretty well, only occasionally bumping into a piece of furniture.
On Friday, the Yorkie's ears stood at attention and she sniffed her nose at sounds, especially the voices of strangers in her kitchen. But her tail wagged as Dorothy held her close.
"She's always been more daddy's dog," Dorothy said. "When she sleeps on the bed, she sleeps right on top of him. But she's always been trying to win me over."
All it took was an act of heroism.