Anvil's pet thread got me thinking about this.....
I've talked about my old greyhound, Lager, several times in the past. Well we got him when my son Kody was just about 1.5 years old. As I've said before, Kody started having seizures when he was about 8-9 months old.
A few months after we got Lager a very unusual thing happened. One evning Kody was playing right in front of me and my wife and he got up to bring one of us a toy. As he came toward us Lager quickly walked up to him and just as Lager reached him Kody stopped, stood very still, and got very quiet. This always signaled that a seizure was about to happen. Well Kody placed his arm over Lager's back and seized for his usual 30 seconds or so. As soon as he was done, Lager went and laid down.
I looked at my wife and her mouth was hanging open and I said' What did you just see?". She replied, "Lager held Kody up while he had that seizure". Exactly what I had seen.
So at first we thought it was a coincidence, but after that when Kody was getting ready to seize, even before we knew he was getting ready to, Lager would walk up to him, Kody would hold on and have the seizure, and then Lager would go back to whatever he was doing. This went on for years until Kody stopped having seizures four years later.
Not long after the first incident with Lager, I saw a show on TV about "seizure dogs". Apparently, some breeds can sense when some people are about to have seizures. In the show I saw a lady, that had seizures, was on a dock and was about to enter the water when her lab prevented her form getting in the water over and over again by blocking her way. Well she immediately seized right on the dock..... that Lab saved her life.
The day the greyhpound group called to tell me they had me a dog and that I should come see if he was a good fit for us, my wife said to me, "Of course he's meant for you, his name is "Lager"".
Little did I know on that day that he was sent for a more important reason.
When I had to have that old boy put done with cancer it broke Kody's heart. He cried like I'd never seen him cry before or since. I think a small part of all our souls left with Lager that day.
We all still miss him terribly...........