 |
This amazing 153-pound hero is just a saint -- a St. Bernard
Thursday, February 4, 1999
By KIMBERLY A.C. WILSON
When Percy Shelley's mom asks for a soda, 3 1/2-year-old Percy hurries to the fridge to grab one. And last week, when Percy's mom yelled for the telephone after collapsing from a diabetic seizure, Percy again came through.
Rescue workers are calling him a hero.
At a strapping 153 pounds, who'd call the St. Bernard anything else?
"Why don't you get Mom a Coke?" coaxes 38-year-old Melanie Horne in a voice that sends a wag shivering down the tail of her giant friend and constant companion.
Off trudges Percy to the refrigerator. With an effortless shrug of his great neck, he pulls the door open and slides his mouth around one of the cans of fruit juice stored on a low shelf.
The can is nearly invisible, wrapped up in his big mouth, as he trots back to Horne, who sits atop a white sheepskin thrown over a corner of her sofa. Percy appears to attempt a lopsided smile when she reaches into his juicy maw to extract the can.
"That's a good boy!" she exclaims. "He takes the laundry to the laundry basket. In the garden, he brings me tools. He makes it possible for me to have a sense of independence."
He also helped save her life last Wednesday afternoon when Horne -- a double-organ recipient who is awaiting another pancreas transplant -- became woozy after her blood sugar and blood pressure nosedived.
"I was in here doing what, I don't even remember, when my blood sugar started falling, and Percy whined at me. I took a quick test, and I realized 'I'm slipping too quickly,' so I told him to bring me the phone, and I was able to dial 911," she said yesterday.
When a medic van and fire engine arrived at Horne's Queen Anne duplex, they found her unresponsive on the couch where Percy had dragged her. When Horne recovered, she explained that Percy had knocked the portable phone from its wall cradle and brought it to her.
"They couldn't believe it," she recalled.
Disbelief in Percy's talents comes as no surprise to Horne.
Horne bought Percy from a breeder in 1995 to help care for her. She was recovering from surgery to replace her kidney and pancreas, and she would often fall down. She opted to train her own service dog rather than buy a costly, ready-trained adult dog.
The tri-color pure bred, whose full name is Percy Shelley Holly Bluff's, weighed 17 pounds and was a quick study.
During her recovery, Horne eventually trained Percy to fetch her medication, grab a box of juice or can of cola and drag her upright. She set up a non-profit organization -- Training Aide Dog Advocacy -- to teach other people how to train their own service dogs.
But even Horne was surprised when her new puppy seemed to instinctively recognize when her blood pressure and blood sugar levels fell dangerously low.
Household legend holds that Percy was only 11-weeks-old when he first rescued Horne: "He was just a little ball of fur when he actually shoved me into the couch and kept me from falling down."
As she talks, Horne's hand massages the snoozing beast's head with a fist roughly the size of his big, black moist nose. Lowering her voice to a whisper, she speaks gratefully about her dog.
"I'm on a pager, and at any moment I can be whisked off for another transplant, and Percy is just making it possible for me to stay alive until a pancreas becomes available."
P-I reporter Kimberly A.C. Wilson can be reached at 206-448-8322 or kacwilson@seattle-pi.com
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER 
Melanie Horne tries to high five her dog Percy at their Queen Anne home. Percy was credited with saving Horne last week during a diabetic seizure.
Photo by Jeff Larsen/P-I
· Mall searched after fatal shooting, no gunman found
· Fire leaves two Arlington boys dead
· Shooting leaves three hurt, one dead in Skyway
more
101 Elliott Ave. W.
Seattle, WA 98119
(206) 448-8000
Home Delivery: (206) 464-2121 or (800) 542-0820
seattlepi.com serves about 1.7 million unique visitors
and 30 million page views each month.
Send comments to newmedia@seattlepi.com
Send investigative tips to iteam@seattlepi.com
©1996-2008 Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Terms of Use/Privacy Policy
