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Collie Stories from Real Life |
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The stories below are published by permission from Mild Kachina |
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Sari |
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I only had my bitch Sari when this happened. I had recently been diagnosed with epilepsy and kept having seizures. My husband Per called home every day to check that everything was all right, but one day I was really in a bad way. I had been having several major seizures and could sense that they kept coming. I was conscious for brief spells. Sari was with me all the time but I could feel that I could not cope. Then the phone rang. “Oh, if only Sari could answer it”, was my thought. We had let her listen to my husband over the phone for fun. Sari walks to the phone in the hall, it was hanging on the wall and that was the one we used most of the time. She jumps several times at it, but of course she can´t get it down. The she opens the door to my son`s room, she actually picks it up and starts making sounds – she really is trying to speak. My husband understands that something has happened, but of course he can´t believe that it´s Sari who has answered the phone. He makes his way home as fast as he can. By then I`m deeply unconscious and he calls for an ambulance. At the hospital, they say I wouldn´t have made it if I had been brought in later. That was the first time that Sari saved my life. Things to ponder: she understood that you can have contact with someone by means of the phone. She was able to think, when she couldn´t bring the receiver down, that there was another phone in a different room. And she sensed how important it was that I got help. |
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Another story about my Award-winning collie Sari |
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We were out for a walk in the woods. It was November and the weather wasn´t too good. I had a major seizure and dropped unconscious to the ground. When I regain consciousness again, Sari is lying on top of me, licking at my cheek and neck – it feels warm and comfy. But the fits continue, my heart beats very fast, I keep having convulsions and my fists are full of Sari´s fur, which I have torn off her during the fits. But still she lies there and keeps me warm. For two hours she lies there, looking after me! When Per comes home from work, he is met by Sari. He realizes that something has happened since she comes back on her own. He calls for an ambulance. Sari runs ahead of the ambulance along the walking path and shows them where I am. This time too she saved my life. I was in very poor shape by the time I got to the hospital, my body temperature was very low. But thanks to Sari keeping me warm and getting help, I made it. A marvellous dog, truly fantastic. Thanks, darling, you are in my heart always. |
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Atlas |
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A Happy End story about my great dog Atlas |
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This was on Febryary, 14th 2007. My husband and I had been out for a walk with our five Collies. When we get back home, I dress Atlas in his red Service Dog outfit – we´ll go out for a spell of obedience training. It is a lovely day with plenty of snow. We´re on the footpath, me with my mind on Atlas, and it´s going quite well with the training. Then I notice a very large tractor, a kind that ordinarily is never used for clearing the snow off the footpath, down on the football ground. It flashes plenty of lanterns. Which is very difficult for me – it easily brings on a seizure. |
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Brita with
her Collie Atlas, the first |
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But the tractor is quite far from us. I go on walking. The suddenly the tractor comes fast and with all its flashing lights on up the hill towards us. I turn aside from the path, thinking that the tractor will continue straight ahead. But it swerves and comes up behind us. Trees and bushes block the driver´s view. It all happens very quickly, I have a seizure and when I´m conscious again I´m lying on the footpath in front of the tractor. BUT BETWEEN ME AND THE TRACTOR THERE IS ATLAS, BARKING AWAY! It´s incredible that he had the guts to sit down in front of that tractor. The driver hadn´t seen me lying there. He´s an elderly, quite nice chap, and he comes up to me and asks me how I am. Then he sees Atlas in his outfit and reads the capture “My mistress suffers from epilepsy” on it. At once, he turns off the flashing lights. Atlas shows him the bag I carry on my chest, the man gives me a pill out of it and helps me on my way home. Atlas is quiet and steady all the time. He stays with me, but makes no show of threatening when the man approaches to help me. I have difficulty walking, my right leg keeps shaking and I have difficulties trying to speak. But it´s not far home and the man means to help me get there. A woman with a small loose dog comes by, she asks if she can help us. Atlas looks a bit at her dog, men doesn´t leave my side. The woman helps me to get home. It works out well – no more fits.
But what would have happened if Atlas hadn´t sat down in front of the tractor and started barking? He has not been taught to do that. But he´s a dog who can think for himself and who knows what to do. I´m incredibly grateful for this dog and the help I have had in training him. If he had´t worn his Service Dog outfit with the badge, showing I have seizures, with a phone number etc, it would´t have ended so well for me. |
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ATLAS WAS AWARDED A PRIZE FROM THE
SWEDISH |
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