“What kind of titanium super-dog do you have?”
That’s what a vet asked one of our readers whose dog fell from a third-story window and walked away a little sore — and nothing more. The same question could be applied to any of the readers who responded to a story by John D. Williams, “Has Your Dog Ever Miraculously Survived a Tragedy?”
Comments include tales of dogs sliding off cliffs, jumping from moving vehicles on the freeway, falling down stairs, and being attacked by other dogs — and surviving.
Reader Dancersweetp contributed the story about a Patterdale Terrier, Solly, walking out the window.
“I lived in a converted Victorian house and had the flat on the top floor. The windows were old sash style with no screens and there was a ledge just below the windowsill where the flat below had a window alcove,” Dancersweetp writes. “I was home from work that day as someone was coming to work on our flat and was downstairs talking to him when she just walked out the window, onto the ledge and jumped off.
“She landed in a small strip of grass between the house and the sidewalk on her feet. She just stood there for a minute and then sat down. … I immediately rushed her to the vet where she was checked for broken bones. To the vet’s and my surprise, she was fine!”
Charity Young shares a story of the dogs and a cliff, which they found while she and her sister rested during a hike.
“We got to talking, and a couple of minutes later there were rocks sprinkling down around us, so we looked up to where the cliff above the cave, and saw that both the dogs had wondered up the hill above us, about 25 feet or so. We tried yelling for them to stop, but they had already leaned too far over looking down, and started sliding. They tried back-pedaling, but slid over the edge one by one.
“I know at that point I was screaming, I thought they were going to die. Twister, my 50-pound BC mix, hit the water (which, while it wasn’t deep, helped lessen the impact). Echo, my sister’s 20-pound Italian Greyhound mix, clipped a rock on the way down into the water.“
Twister was shaken up, but bounded out of the water, having suffered only a torn dewclaw. Echo could swim, but was bleeding a bit near her mouth. Just to be sure, the hikers carried Echo in a backpack, but the vet looked her over and said some scraped-up footpads and a cut on the chin was the extent of the injury.
“Gotta say, that was a relief! ” Charity Young writes.
Dogster reader Holly reports that her German Shepherd, Heidi, was in the back of her family’s pickup (“something I will never do again”) traveling at 70 mph on the interstate.
“There was a huge fireworks show going on, … and Heidi became scared. All of a sudden my husband looked in his rear view mirror and saw Heidi jump out of the back of the pick-up truck.”
The couple pulled over and searched the highway and a nearby service road for the dog but saw no sign of her. They later posted signs looking for the dog and returned to the area in the days afterward.
Eventually “We got a phone call at 6 a.m. saying that a dog was spotted roaming the railroad tracks, very shy and scared, right in the area where she jumped. We packed up the kids, drove out to the area to see if this was our dog. Sure enough, there she was, walking along the railroad tracks. What a reunion it was for my husband and our two little girls.”
As for the injuries? “Heidi had one small abrasion on her leg, and she was exhausted, but she was fine,” Holly writes.
A reader called Ace’s Mama writes, “A few months ago, when the doorbell rang, Ace ran down the wooden stairs to the front door (we live in a flat). She slipped near the top and bounced all the way down. She looked like a stuffed toy just ricocheting off each step. I was already plotting the route to the emergency vet in my head while I was watching her.
“Somehow, when she landed, she just did a shake and proceeded to greet our friends at the door. She was completely fine. I had flashbacks of her falling for about a week afterward. Dogs can be incredibly resilient, and that goes for people, too! “
Dogster reader Lisa shares a tale of an unprovoked attack that happened outside her apartment involving her 7-pound Pomeranian, Koby, and a Weimeraner.
“They were just having a normal interaction, sniffing and what not, when all of a sudden, the Weimeraner just grabbed Koby by the neck and thrashed him violently before throwing him to the ground (similar to how dogs play with toys).
“We immediately rushed him to the vet and he was taken in for surgery and stitches; turns out, the vet told us, the weimeraner narrowly missed a vital artery in Koby’s neck, thereby saving him from bleeding to death. Fortunately, he is now fully recovered but he really hates big dogs! “
Other stories include a dog being in an automobile accident, a dog escaping and having a seizure for lack of medication, two dogs hit by cars, and another attacked by a coyote. All survived! Read the comments in the original story here.
