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Exerpts from a past PEOPLE magazine article. I just have the dog stories posted.
Ice Capade
Even with the temperature hovering at 35 below zero, dog trainer Jim Gilchrist of Innisfil, Ont., decided to take his two pets -- Tara, a rottweiler, and Tiree, a golden retriever -- out for their usual afternoon walk on Feb. 24, 1995. After passing through the woods, they headed home across frozen Lake Simcoe. But as the dogs bounded ahead, Gilchrist, 61, felt the ice give way. "I was walking along and went `pop' right through," he recalls. "It happened so fast. I thought, `This could be the end.'" Hearing her master's cries, Tara raced over, only to crash through herself. As they thrashed about, Tiree appeared. "All I could think was that she'd meet our same fate," says Gilchrist. Instead the whining dog crouched on her belly and crawled to the hole. As Gilchrist grabbed Tiree's collar, Tara scrambled atop his back to jump out of the hole. Then she lay on her belly alongside Tiree so Gilchrist could grab her collar with his other hand. While the 200-pound Gilchrist hung on, the dogs clawed backward until he was safe. "They had every right to run ashore," says Gilchrist, who, back home, gave his dogs a hot bath. "They risked their lives to save me. "Having since won several awards for heroism, Tiree, 2, is back to her happy-go-lucky self, but Tara, 5, "is paranoid now about water," says Gilchrist. Of course, so is he. "I will never go out on the lake when it's frozen -- or let my animals."
Snake Handler
On Jan. 27 this year, the weather in Boston, Ga., was balmy enough for 2-year-old Sean Harry to indulge in one of his favorite pastimes: playing among the pecan trees in his grandmother's backyard. As always, Haven, the Chihuahua belonging to his grandmother Phyllis Ingham, was nearby. "Sean loves to crack and eat pecans, and so does Haven," says Sean's mother, Lisa Harry, 25, a homemaker. "We were all just having a nice time."Trouble began after Sean wandered over to a pile of hay. "I heard him scream," says Lisa. "It was an unbelievable scream, one that I had never heard. I just froze." A three-foot poisonous black water moccasin -- no doubt visiting from the nearby swamp -- had lunged at the toddler's legs, and was now hanging by its fangs from Sean's pants. "The snake was jerking Sean so that his whole body was wiggling," says Lisa. Immediately, Haven leaptinto action. "She jumped right on the snake, put her paws on Sean's leg and just shook and shook until she got it off." Though Sean's jeans were sprayed with venom -- and bore two fang-holes -- he had not been poisoned. "A bite certainly could have killed him," says Dr. Henry Gainey, who treated Sean at a nearby hospital. But Sean has yet to show the 2-year-old dog proper gratitude. Instead he tends to poke his fingers in her eyes. Sighs Ingram: "He's wanting to love her, but doesn't realize he's hurting her."
A Labrador Retrieved Her
Whenever Annette McDonald of Seaside, Ore., strolls along the town's Necanicum River with her husband, Steve, and son Paul, 2, their 4-year-old yellow Labrador Norman is always nearby. Though completely blind for nearly two years from progressive retinal atrophy, Norman still loves the water. "He lives to go to the beach," says Annette, 39. "He runs and if he's about to hit something, I'll shout, `Easy! Easy!' and he slows down." But during one walk last Aug. 5, Norman "flew off, ignoring my calls," says Annette. "He looked like he was on a mission." That he was. Minutes earlier, Lisa Nibley, 15, and her brother Joey, 12, tourists from Battle Ground, Wash., who had been swimming,
found themselves caught in the river's current. Joey managed to reach shore; his sister, whose screams alerted the dog, had not. "Norman swam after her, and my jaw just dropped,"says Annette. He finally reached Lisa, who grabbed his tail, and the two headed back to shore. "I don't know how much longer I could have lasted," says Lisa. After hearing their daughter's story, Elaine, a homemaker who had been with her husband, Jeff, a pilot, on the other side of the river, "started shaking and crying," says Lisa. Now a photo of the brave dog hangs on Lisa's bedroom wall "up there with pictures of all my friends," she says. "He's my guardian angel."
©Copyright PEOPLE magazine, July 14, 1997. All Rights Reserved.