Mountaintop Natural Pets

Source: VisaliaTimes, May 8, 2010

Lino Camacho of Farmersville has a habit of saving lives and protecting the defenseless.

The 17-year-old did it again Thursday, witnesses and police reported, in what could easily have been a tragic loss of life.

“This young man chose to save a precious young life, endangering his own in the process,” said Lt. Mike Marquez of the Farmersville Police Department.

Camacho snatched life from the jaws of death, as 18-month old Nevaeh Baxter was attacked by a family pet — a mixed-breed dog, part German shepherd and part boxer — around 9:20 a.m. Thursday.

“Seniors didn’t have to go in early Thursday because of STAR testing [at Farmersville High School],” Camacho said. “That turned out to be a very lucky thing.”

Camacho and his brother Luis, 19, who will be attending College of the Sequoias this fall, heard what Lino thought were “two dogs fighting.”

However, one of those sounds was the screaming of the girl as she was attacked. That was what Lino saw as he ran across the street and scaled two fences to reach the scene in the 500 block of North Ventura Street in Farmersville.

Lino’s athleticism — he played soccer for Farmersville’s championship boys soccer squad — proved valuable.

“I couldn’t have gotten there in time,” Luis said. “By the time I got to the backyard by going on the roof, I saw Lino grabbing the dog with a chokehold.”

Lino said he would have killed the dog if he had to — but managed to just hang on until help arrived. The dog is now being sheltered at the Valley Oak SPCA until a decision is made under Farmersville’s vicious-dog ordinance on whether to euthanize the animal.

Little Nevaeh underwent surgery Friday at Fresno’s Community Regional Medical Center for several injuries, including puncture wounds and a cut to the face which affected at least one eye. She is listed in “critical but stable” condition, Marquez said.

“It looks like the eye will be saved,” said Cynthia Anaya, Lino’s mother and a friend of Nevaeh’s family.

More rescues

Four years ago, as a freshman at Tulare Union High School, Lino saved a classmate from drowning in the school’s pool, Luis said.

“This one guy was diving in and never came back up,” Luis said.

Lino said he instinctively jumped in and managed to keep the struggling, panicky boy’s head above water.

“He was kicking me all over the place, but I kept grabbing at him until I could get him to the [pool's] edge,” Lino said.

In another more recent incident, Lino saved his cousin Veronica Anaya from what she said was a “dangerous snake.”

“This snake was hissing and trying to strike at me,” Anaya said.

Lino took care of the problem by simply killing the snake, she said.

“That was the only thing he could do,” Anaya said.

Some people were born to save others, said Lino’s uncle, Joe Anaya III.

“That’s what Lino wants to do when he gets older,” Joe said. “He wants to save lives. He certainly did the right thing this time around.”

Source: TBO.com, April 5, 2010

A 1-year-old puppy-size bundle of fur is credited with alerting a sleeping family to fire spreading through their Clearwater home early this morning.

The incessant barking of the family’s Shih Tzu, Scooter, awoke the family and gave them time to escape a fire that started in a vehicle parked in the driveway of their home on Byram Drive.

“She woke us up. She started barking,” said Roberto Segovia, 18-year-old son of homeowners Ocsar and Celsa Segovia.

“The dog usually barks and we were just like minding our own business, but she kept on barking until we woke up just to see what’s happening,” he said as friends and neighbors helped board up the home severely damaged by the fire.

His father saw the glow of flames and got the rest of the family moving to safety.

All three people along with Scooter were outside when firefighters arrived about 5:30 a.m., Clearwater Fire and Rescue said.

The fire started in a 2001 Ford Expedition in the driveway parked about 4 feet from the house and spread to the attic, the fire department said. It took firefighters about 40 minutes to put out the flames.

The car was not running, though the family used it the day before, Roberto Segovia said. It ran fine then.

Firefighters had to pull down parts of the ceiling to get at flames roaring through the attic. The interior is a shambles with ash, ruined ceiling material and water, Roberto Segovia said.

The house in uninhabitable and the American Red Cross is helping the family find a place to live.

Roberto Segovia described the family pet firefighters hailed as a hero as a tiny furball.

“It’s just all fur,” he said. “It moves.”

Source: SummitDaily.com, Feb 3, 2010

Source: Cincinatti.com, September 30, 2009

Life is too short to sweat the small stuff.

“It’s a miracle, I tell ya that. Nothing ever bothered me, even falling into a cistern,” he joked this morning from his room at University Hospital, where he’s recovering from the ordeal. “I’ll worry about it now. But I never worried about it before.”

While mowing the lawn Tuesday, Paff said he noticed a small opening in the grass in his backyard by the private septic tank that’s been there for 60 years.

He went closer to investigate about 2 p.m. – and discovered the hard way that four inches of concrete on top of the septic tank had apparently deteriorated. He fell in feet first.

“I had seen this square hole. I knew it was above the septic tank and looked up and was trying to look into it and I fell into it,” he recalled. “The cement was crumbling in the bottom. It disintigrated. It was shot. I went down in the dirt.”

At the bottom of the tank, he plunged into muddy water.

“I held my breath and felt the air hit my face,” he said.

His shoes and feet were stuck in the mud. Dirt fell down around him up to his knees. He compared being in the tank to standing in a closet that was about 9 feet tall and three feet wide.

“My body was in water three feet deep,” he said.

He managed to step out of his shoes and pull them up so he could set them on the grass outside the tank. His hope was that someone would see them and help him. “I could stand up but I couldn’t get out,” he said. “I sat on top of the dirt.”

Then, he waited to be rescued. It was a long wait.

Paff was home alone. His wife, Ruth, 78, had fallen ill the night before and remains at Mercy Hospital Western Hills. He thinks several hours went by. No one came by or noticed he was missing.

He kept yelling “Help!” every 10 minutes or so, he said.

No one answered.

He started to panic. The water was freezing cold. He was shivering.

“I’m OK,” he said today. “I feel fine. But the only thing was when it turned dark, about 6 or 6:30 p.m., I got cold. I was freezing. I think if I would have been there another two hours I don’t think I would have made it.”

He heard a dog barking in the distance. He barked back.

“I heard him barking and started barking and growling and stuff to try to attract him,” Paff said. “I think it made him mad to hear me growling at him. I wanted somebody to see me.”

Stacey Walsh, who was spending time at her mother’s house two doors down from Paff, heard the dog barking and eventually found Paff.

She saw his shoes and came over.

“She said ‘Oh, my, God, Mr. Paff!’ I said, ‘Call 911.’”

Delhi Township Fire Chief Bill Zoz said the first responders moved water and waste out of the hole. It soon became apparent they needed heavier equipment.

Emergency crews from several jurisdictions sent manpower and gear, including a heater to pump warm air into the tank, septic trucks to pump out the water and sewage, lights other materials.

Paff was finally extricated using a rope and pulley system by the Hamilton County Urban Search and Rescue unit, he was decontaminated on the scene – the warm water was brought over by a neighbor – and transported to University Hospital by a medical helicopter.

Source: Reuters, Sun Oct 26, 2008 7:53am GMT

SYDNEY (Reuters) – A dog was hailed as a hero on Sunday after it risked its life to save a litter of newborn kittens from a house fire, rescuers said.

In a case which gives the lie to the saying about ‘fighting like cats and dogs’, the terrier cross named Leo had to be revived with oxygen and heart massage after his ordeal. Fire broke out overnight at the house in Australia’s southern city of Melbourne, where he was guarding the kittens.

Fire fighters who revived Leo said he refused to leave the building and was found by them alongside the litter of kittens, despite thick smoke.

“Leo wouldn’t leave the kittens and it nearly cost him his life,” fire service Commander Ken Brown told reporters.

The four kittens also survived the fire and on Sunday Leo, who fire fighters nicknamed ‘Smoky’, was again back at the house.

Source: By BRONWYN TORRIE – Manawatu Standard | Thursday, 23 October 2008

Bonnie the brave dog saved her owner in a violent hold-up in Shannon’s public toilets.

The 2-year-old pitbull-staffordshire terrier cross bit the female attacker who stabbed her owner in the thigh with a pocket knife at about 6.15pm on Tuesday.

“I really think I would have been stabbed more than what I was,” said her 40-year-old owner, who didn’t want to be named.

The woman was walking Bonnie when she needed to use the facilities on Balance Street.

Bonnie went into the cubicle with her.

“She was in the other toilet when I was in there and when I came out she was standing there confronting me as I opened the door.

“I was shit scared.

“I can’t get that image out of my head.”

The woman did what she was told and handed over $30 and three bottles of medication with her name and address printed on the labels.

This didn’t stop the attacker from digging the pocket knife into the woman’s right thigh.

Bonnie bit the attacker’s arm who then fled the toilets, the woman said. “She told me to ‘empty my f****n pockets’ and then when Bonnie bit her she said ‘you’re gonna get it now you f****n bitch’.

“Bonnie sensed my fear I think and she acted on it, I’m so proud of her.”

The woman did not feel the knife pierce her skin.

It wasn’t until she saw blood seeping from her wound that she realised what had happened.

She limped down to the nearby unattended police station and rang the buzzer that connects to the Levin and Foxton stations.

But it wouldn’t ring through, she said. “Typical.” She limped around the corner to her home where her husband immediately called an ambulance.

She left Palmerston North Hospital with “three or four [stitches] on the outside but they stitched up the inside too”.

Fears that Bonnie would be put down were quashed by police and animal control, the woman said.

“I’ve already spoken to animal control about it because there was a rumour going around town.

“The police said that it was not going to happen.”

By law, Bonnie should have been muzzled.

“If I had a muzzle on her last night she wouldn’t have been able to protect me. I’ve never seen that side of her until last night.

Levin police are looking for the offender described as a chubby Maori woman in her late teens or early 20s with short black hair, wearing a black top and jeans.