Cat and Dog honored for saving masters!

When Debbie Parkhurst choked on a piece of apple at her Maryland home,
her dog jumped in, landing hard on her chest and forcing the morsel to
pop out of her throat. When the Keesling family of Indiana was about
to be overcome by carbon monoxide, their cat clawed at wife Cathy's
hair until she woke up and called for help.

For their nick-of-time acts, Toby, a 2 1/2-year-old golden retriever,
and Winnie, a gray-eyed American shorthair, were named Dog and Cat of
the Year by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
Animals.

In addition, five humans were honored Thursday for their actions
toward animals in the past year, including a Bronx firefighter who
saved a dog and cat from a burning building.

Neither Parkhurst nor Keesling could explain their pets' timely
heroics, though Parkhurst suggested her pooch's Heimlich maneuver
might have been guided by divine intervention.

"That's what our veterinarian said," she said. "He wasn't making a
joke; he's very spiritual, and now I have to agree with him."

Both pets were themselves rescued in infancy - Toby as a 4-week-old
puppy tossed into a garbage bin to die, and Winnie as a week-old
orphan hiding under a barn, so helpless that Keesling's husband, Eric,
had to feed her milk with an eyedropper.

As the Keeslings recalled it, a gas-driven pump being used to remove
flood waters from their basement in New Castle, Ind., last March
malfunctioned, spreading carbon monoxide through the house. By the
time Winnie moved into rescue mode, the couple's 14-year-old son,
Michael, was already unconscious.

"Winnie jumped on the bed and was clawing at me, with a kind of angry
meow," Cathy Keesling said. "When I woke up I felt like a T-bar had
hit me across the head."

Alex
http://PersianKittenEmpire.Com