When my pet saved my life

Often our pets try to warn us against dangers and manage to save us from them. Zoya Nasir and Siddiqua Riyaz ask parents their favourite rescue stories

CHENNAI:

We didn’t listen to her closely’

Sushmita Sarkar lives in Jharkhand (Dhanbad) with her three dogs Tyson, Tipsy and their puppy Titoo. Burglary and chain snatching are common in her neighbourhood. “One midnight, Titoo got up, went to our backyard and would not stop howling. My mother managed to get her back in somehow and put her to bed. Next day we saw footprints in the backyard and found out that burglars had broken in next door and stolen their valuables. Maybe Titoo wanted to alert us but we failed to understand her signs,“ she says.

Chasing away car burglars

Nikita Adinarayan is the proud parent of her fawn labrador, eight-year-old Bruno. "Once he kept running around a window, barking and howling, at around 2 am. We didn’t know what was happening and just asked him to go to bed but he kept at it,” she says. “We went to check what was wrong and noticed that few men had entered our gate and were trying to break open the lock of our parking area. As soon as we opened the door, Bruno pounced at them and chased them away.”

‘Saved me twice so far’

Dhanyatha Jaganath lives in her Chikmangalur estate with her family, which is complete with her three beautiful dogs Prado, Pirate and Pitty. “Once when I was watching TV in the living area with Prado beside me, and I didn’t realize when Prado had left. A while later, I noticed a shadow behind the curtain… my Prado had caught a snake, which had sneaked into our home. Prado saved my life,” she says. Another day she was out for a walk with her dogs, when they stood by a pot and started barking. “I told them to calm down but they wouldn’t. When I tried to take them back home, I saw something popping out of the pot and it was a cobra crawling towards me. But my dogs jumped at it and killed the venomous creature.”

Osky sends thieves packing

Supritha Sreedhar, a digital marketing analyst, owns a black pug whom she calls Osky (Oscar). “Once I was all alone at home, because my parents were out of station, and I had fallen asleep. At 11.30 pm, Osky began barking incessantly and forced me to get off the bed. I saw my pug barking at burglars who were trying to break into my apartment through a window. He had alerted our tenants and with their help the burglars were handed over to the police,” she says.

Buzo puts out a fire

Prachi, who studies at the Cluny Convent High School, has a dog named Buzo. She says that around midnight, when everyone was asleep, fire broke out and nobody realised it except Buzo, who woke everyone up. “The fire was wild and had spread across the kitchen and bathroom and if Buzo hadn’t alerted us, anything could have happened,” she says.

Lucky helps beat the blues

M Meghana Reddy, a student of Mount Carmel College, got her pet lab Lucky five years ago when she was diagnosed with depression. “My parents gifted her to me. She kept me busy… I had to clean up all the mess she made, she forced me to play with her and I had to look after her,” says Meghana. “I began to feel responsible and important, and this helped me overcome depression.”

Tom leads granma home

Sushmita Lal, a 16-year-old student, is the proud parent of a Pomeranian Tom for the past 6 years. She says, “My grandmother suffers from amnesia and once she did not return home late night. We were all tensed and it was then that we asked Tom to smell my grandmother’s scent and search for her. And after an hour, Tom brought her back home.”

Tommy saves a garden

Tommy, a German Shepherd, is the keeper of a nursery MV Prasanna Kumar owns. “Tommy has been with us for seven years and has protected us from many dangers,” says Prasanna, a resident of JC Nagar. “We own a plant nursery and it is located just beside our house. One evening, Tommy started to bark loudly. He later ran towards the nursery, we followed him thinking he is trying to tell us something and caught burglars who had barged in to steal plants… Once a snake came in to our nursery. Tommy kept driving us back into the house and he killed the snake.”

Tom chases away bullies

Christopher Raj Kumar, a businessman, is a parent of a nine-year-old Rottweiler named Tom. He says,“My son is visually impaired  and once, when he left home alone, few of the men around began making fun of him and troubling him. Tom chased the men away and brought back our son home safely.”

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