Sometimes Animals Will Save Your Life
Sometimes animals can be responsible for saving human lives. It makes one wonder if some animals have gained some sort of knowledge which makes them think human life is important? I know this sounds nuts, but I don’t know how else we can explain how they knew we were in danger and why they wanted to help us? One of the exceptions, I say exceptions because we understand why they might do it are dogs. Dogs are pack animals and they accept us as a member of their pack and in most cases our life is very important to them because they love us. There are just so many cases where dogs have risked death and injury to protect their humans.
What you don’t hear much about are cats saving people. An elderly man had been given a cat for a pet. He lived alone and the cat was good company for him. The old man decided to talk to the cat as he did specific tasks and when he would talk on the cell phone he would say to the cat Ring-A-Ding. One day he was taking a shower and fell. He couldn’t move and laid there for hours. Finally, he said to the cat Ring-A-Ding and the cat went out of the room and returned giving him the cell phone which allowed him to call for help which saved his life. Should I say it? Yes, I will, he avoided a catastrophe.
So far, I have talked about domesticated animals. They are used to living with humans and many which are not dogs form a bond with their human hosts, but some wild animals have been known to save the lives of humans. I guess one of the most famous types of animals which have repeatedly save humans are dolphins. There are many cases where dolphins have come to the rescue of drowning humans, or humans being attacked by sharks. What drives them to care about us? We have been studying dolphins for many years. A dolphin has even a bigger brain than a human, but in the case of brains, size doesn’t always seem to matter. It could turn out however that dolphins are just as smart as humans and have their own language, but we just haven’t been able to prove it yet. If dolphins would have had arms and hands with opposable thumbs, would they have built tools and structures? Maybe.
Some stories are very hard to verify. I remember a story about Africa where it was said gorillas went into a village and checked each hut looking for a lost baby gorilla. It was even said they knocked on doors. When I was told this by fellow workers, I said you guys believe this? The next day a retraction was put in the newspaper. There is a story about an African girl being kidnaped by several men to be sold. When they were in the jungle several days later the girl began to scream and a pride of lions came along and chased the men away and then sat with the girl until the authorities came along and picked her up.
There was a famous story about a child at the zoo in 1996. The child was 3 years old at the time and somehow fell into the Gorilla pit. He was picked up by a female gorilla which protected him and carried him to the doorway where rescue workers could get him. At the time the female gorilla was also carrying her baby on her back. There were six gorillas in the compound at the time.
There is a story about a man riding a horse and passing out. Whether it was known to the horse is another question. There is no disputing the fact however the horse returned the rider back to the stable. Horses sometimes go back on their own so was this a conscious act to save someone or just a habit? I know when I rode a horse one time he went out of control and raced back to the stable and I had a hard time trying to convince him to slow down and not rub against trees along the way.
There is a story about a woman who had a pig for a pet. Many people say pigs are extremely smart. The woman lived alone with the pig and one day she had a heart attack. The pig saw her fall to the ground and ran outside to the highway. It made all sorts of noises at the cars going by until one stopped and then the pig led the driver back to the house where he found the lady on the floor and got her help. Was this the miraculous hand of God involved, or did the pig actually know what it was doing?
Another animal which is considered very smart and emotional is the elephant. Elephants have every reason to hate humans since they are being slaughtered by them constantly. A man was responsible for saving the life of a baby elephant. One day he was swimming in the river and the current must have been too strong for him. The elephant could see the man was in distress and drowning, so it jumped into the water, swam toward the man and helped him back to shore. After watching this particular video, I believe the elephant thought it was saving the man, but the man was making believe he was drowning. This doesn’t diminish what the elephant did however.
We may not think birds can be heroes, but that thought would be incorrect. A man returned home after a hard day’s labor and fell asleep. He owned a cockatiel. A fire broke out under the house but the man was so tired he didn’t wake up. The bird noticing the smoke began to make a terrible racket, which woke the man and saved his life. Some birds are said to be even more intelligent than dogs and when you get into the category of crows, they are said to be as smart as toddlers or even smarter.
One usually doesn’t think of a rabbit as the type of animal that might be able to save a human life, but one did exactly that. A middle aged man had a rabbit for a pet. The man was sitting when he fell into a diabetic coma and slumped over. The rabbit seeing this jumped on the man’s chest. The man’s wife, who must have thought he fell asleep, ran over and noticed he was in a coma and called for help. Credit the rabbit for the save.