UA-12921627-3 Jump to content

Troy's Story

Deanne1407

By Deanne1407
in Rainbow Bridge

 Share

Recommended Posts

Deanne1407

Deanne1407

Posted
Posted

Troy was barely 6 weeks old when we came across him, a farmer had turned to breeding to make money and while most of his puppies seemed healthy, one poor timid little mite was almost dead. He was suffering from severe malnutrition and was passing his stomach lining every time his bowels moved. We already had 3 dogs, and did not need a fourth but we knew that if we walked away, he would be dead within days. We had to sweet talk & pay more than full price just to get him home with us. At least if he died, he would die knowing that he was loved. He needed a lot of TLC but he eventually started to thrive and became a very loving member of our large family, with his own little, or not so little as it turned out, character. His favorite trick was when he would climb right up on top of your chest, put a paw on each of your shoulders, lay his head down sideways very gently on your chest and make a low rumble, mimicking the noise our kids make when they blow you a hug and kiss.

Four years later......

We went to this forest every week, and this walk started out the same as all the others. It was 4pm when we entered the forest park, as soon as we made it through the 8ft security gate, we let all 4 dogs off their leads as usual, they knew the route well. Bonnie & Troy, who were the mammy & daddy of our canine family, set off at a regular pace, while Cole & Rosie, the rather big babies started the usual running game with our kids. We had our routine, after about 20 minutes, we were nearing the little bridge which had become our favorite spot, after our older & now deceased Alsation/Greyhound cross, BJ, had missed her footing, fell into the irrigation shuck on one side of the bridge and in disorientation, appeared out the other side, causing our children to roar with laughter. It had become her party piece and had never failed to invoke laughter, so she had taught it to each of the other dogs as they came along. Bonnie & Troy had caught up with Cole & Rosie, and along with Lauren & Ben, our two children, were shouting that they were going on to the bridge. As it was getting late, I turned to shout to my husband, who was walking a bit behind me with our AFS Argentinean student, Marcela, that I was going on with the kids & the dogs. That was the first time I saw him. He was huge, caramel brown, a good distance away from us still, but he was running towards us at speed. His head was down and his whole demeanor was menacing, the first words to come out of my mouth were "That dog's going to kill our dogs!" I was frozen to the spot with fear, but my husband turned to look, and yelled back, "nah, he's just a big Boxer, he's probably looking for a play", by this stage he had passed us and was catching up with our 4 dogs. I started to argue that I thought that he was looking for a fight, but when he ran into the centre of our 4, he stopped & seemed to freeze for a second. For a split second I breathed a sigh of relief, as it appeared that my husband could be right Then, he turned on Cole; our dogs had never fought before, other than the usual play fighting amongst themselves at home, so Cole froze, confused, he didn't know what to do, the strange dog had him by his front left leg and was chewing it before pulling Cole to the ground. We had caught up with them just as Cole went down, our immediate reaction was to try to get the other dog off Cole, we didn't think, we simply reacted. Shaun grabbed the other dog from behind & tried to pull it off Cole, I was on my knees, partially on top of Cole, punching this dog in his face, trying to prize his jaws open. Ben & Lauren were screaming at us to get the dog off Cole, Lauren was beating the dog's skull with Cole's lead and Ben was trying to help Shaun pull it off.....like I said, we reacted instinctively, to try to save our baby. Our other 3 dogs did not intervene, they stayed beside Lauren, Ben and Marcela, they didn't even bark, they seemed to be as terrified as us. This struggle seemed to go on forever, although I know now that it was only about 10 or 15 minutes, Cole just lay there, not reacting; I remember he looked really confused. Cole then appeared to faint, his body went completely limp but his eyes were still open, they were completely glazed & so still, I thought that he'd had a heart attack or something, I thought that he was dead. Before I could react, the brown dog then turned on me; he sank his teeth into my arm and flew at me, flipping me over onto my back. He released my arm and lunged at my face, trying to sink his teeth into me, but at that, Shaun had managed to get a better hold of him, around his torso, and he threw himself backwards onto the ground, pulling the attacking dog with him. While this was going on, I screamed at the children to run to safety and to get help, they took off running. I started to climb over to Shaun, as during the struggle, we had slid down into a mucky shuck, I was completely physically exhausted and could barely move, I was screaming "stop" & "no" but the dog just ignored me & continued with his attack. The dog had managed to spin round and was now on top of Shaun, I pulled at it's body, screaming at Shaun to try to get out from under it, but he was still holding on to it's neck, he didn't want to let go of the dog, in case it attacked me or the kids again. At that very moment, the dog broke loose from Shaun's arms and as he tried to grab at it again the dog took off running after the kids. I took off after it, screaming as hard as I could at the kids to run faster. Lauren, Marcela and Ben & the dogs were running as fast as they could, but Ben was at the rear and Troy was in front of him, looking back, keeping an eye. They had been running for a couple of minutes before the dog had managed to break free from Shaun, so there was a big gap between them and us, but the dog covered it in what seemed to be milli-seconds. He was right on Ben's heels and seemed to be attempting to pounce upwards at Ben, I was running as fast as I could, screaming at Ben to run; I knew that I could never reach him in time to stop the dog attacking him.....I will never be able to forget what the helplessness felt like, I thought that Ben was going to die and there was nothing that I could do to stop it, I wanted it to be me instead of him. Just at that I saw Troy rear up on his hind legs and flip himself backwards going back& behind Ben, as he landed his front feet on the ground, his head was down, and he charged at the other dog's side. As the other dog was mid-stride, Troy took his body sideways into the irrigation gully at speed. Ben stopped running & turned to see Troy being mauled in the gully, he was screaming for his daddy to stop the dog from hurting Troy, Troy was squealing in pain and the other dog was snarling as he bit into Troy's body. Shaun & I jumped into the gully with the two dogs to try to separate them. Lauren & Marcela had also stopped running and were pulling at Shaun begging him to stop the dog as well; they were pulling at me to stop me from going down further down into the gully. I yelled at them to start running again, "go get help, get yourselves to safety, we'll be ok" At that Bonnie ran at the other dog and tried to bite him, but he flipped her across the path and returned his attentions to Troy. The kids took off running again, but by now, it was pitch black, & they couldn't see very well. Shaun & I continued to struggle with the attacking dog, trying to pull Troy free, when Shaun shouted at me to go after the kids. I didn't want to leave Shaun, but he then roared that there could be another of these dogs loose in the forest, maybe this ones mate. I refused at first but the thought of another dog attacking the kids when they were alone.......I started running, screaming their names, interspersed with "Help, please help!". I don't know how long it took me to stagger back to the forest gates, I know that I fell a few times, but as I approached the driveway of the only house inside the forest, I met a man coming running towards me. I was trying to tell him what had happened, begging him to come with me to help Shaun, when Ben came running towards me, crying sorely. It suddenly dawned on me to phone the police, I grabbed Ben's mobile and rang 999. The man set off down the path, back into the forest with Ben, to try to find Shaun. The operator kept telling me to calm down as he couldn't make out what I was saying, I felt like the words wouldn't come out in the right order, I was more terrified than I have ever been in my life, I told him where we were, & that Shaun was still in the gully deep in the forest with Troy and the other dog. They asked me to stay at the entrance to the forest so that I could show them where to find Shaun. That call was logged at 17:04, they seemed to take ages to reach us, there had been a bad accident in Randalstown and the traffic had been diverted causing a traffic jam. Terry, the man who had gone with Ben to help Shaun, appeared at the bottom of the drive, practically dragging Shaun between him and Ben. Shaun couldn't even stand up straight. His disc in his back had moved (from RTA in 1991) and he had no feeling in his left hand side, I thought that Troy was dead and collapsed on the ground crying. Terry then told me that he had found Shaun collapsed and had dragged him back to the house. Troy was still in the gully, now completely exhausted and badly injured. Terry wanted us to wait there for the police, but Troy was our baby, we couldn't leave him there alone. We told the kids to stay at Terry's house with the other three dogs and I set off back into the forest again with Shaun to try to get Troy out, Terry came behind us in the car saying that neither of us would make it back that far walking, so we went back to the gully. We were still trying to pull the other dog off Troy when the police car arrived at approximately 17:35. The two officers realized almost immediately that there was nothing that they could do to end the struggle. We begged them to shoot the brown dog, "please, he's killing our Troy, please stop him" They asked us what type of dog it was, we told them that we weren't sure, that we thought that it might be a boxer, but that it was big. The male officer told us that he needed permission to use his firearm and that he would have to radio back to the Antrim station to get this. For the following 15 - 20 minutes, he radioed back and forth, allegedly trying to obtain this "permission". All this time we were calling Troy, it was so dark that we could hardly make out if he was alive or dead, we could hear whimpering but when we called his name the brown dog started snarling again. Both dogs were completely exhausted but the brown dog still had his jaw locked onto Troy. Eventually the male officer fired a warning shot into the ground beside the two dogs, hoping that it would startle it into releasing Troy, but it didn't work. He then started saying that we had to be aware that if he fired at the other dog, he could well miss and hit Troy by accident. I told him that I didn't care, that if Troy had to die, then I would rather that it was quickly, with a bullet that being chewed the way that he was doing then. The policeman fired one shot into the brown dog's back, it had no effect, the dog kept chewing Troy, and Troy kept squealing in agony. He fired another shot into it's back, this one seemed to make the brown dog even angrier, as he chewed harder on Troy. It was more than I could bear. The policeman turned to us and said that he was going to have to aim at the head of the brown dog, but, were we sure that we were willing to take the risk of killing Troy. "please just bring it to an end" I pleaded, "don't make Troy suffer anymore than he has to". He fired the fatal shot and the brown dog finally went limp.....we called Troy's name and we cried with relief when we heard his whimper. Shaun and the policewoman climbed down into the gully and Shaun pulled the other dog off Troy before lifting Troy up to me. He was still alive, but barely, the policeman told me to get a vet here as quickly as possible. We had to try a few numbers before we managed to talk to a vet who could come out as the others were out on emergencies. Terry took me up to his house to wait for the vet and to tell my children that Troy was still alive. At this point, more police arrived. When the vet, Brendan, arrived, he told us that we needed to get Troy to the surgery asap, he said that he was amazed that Troy was still alive, and that he might not even make it to the surgery. Shaun and the policewoman lifted Troy up onto my knee in the vet's jeep and we drove as fast as we could. The nurses were waiting for us when we arrived and they worked on Troy, doing everything that they could, and then some. All this time, I was nose to nose with my baby, begging him to hang on, that we needed him to get better, he mumbled every now and then, as if he was trying to say " I'm here".

The more that Brendan told us that it was doubtful that Troy would live through this and that if he did, that he would definitely loose his front left leg, if not both, it didn't seem real, we never thought he would die.......we were in denial I suppose. About one hour later, the two police officers arrived at the surgery with Shaun and the kids in tow, they had brought the other dogs straight to the vets to get them cleaned up and checked out. The police also had the body of the dead dog, and they asked Brendan to ascertain it's breed. Brendan asked us to leave the staff to look after Troy as he wouldn't settle until we were gone. He treated Cole and Bonnie's wounds and gave them both a shot of anti-biotic. He asked us to bathe them in warm salty water and bring them back first thing the next morning. The following day, we were allowed to see Troy for a very short time, when he saw us, he tried to lift his head and grumbled very weakly, his tail lifted and fell heavily twice, but we could see that he was in a bad way. He died in the early hours of the 8th of November 2006 of septicemia from the teeth of the other dog. The two police officers came to our home and informed us, the following evening, that the breed of the other dog had been definitively identified as a Pit Bull. I thank God every day that I got the chance to thank Troy for saving Ben's life that night, I don't think that I could have lived with it if I hadn't had that chance. I also thank him nightly in my prayers and I constantly wish that the whole thing was just a very bad dream that I could awake from and find Troy lying sleeping down my side of the bed.

Run Free & Happy at the bridge Mr Teebs

We will always hold you in our hearts

Shaun, Deirdre, Lauren, Ben

Bonnie, Cole, Rosie

:GroupHug:

&

TJ (Troy Junior)

Link to comment
Share on other sites
  • 4 weeks later...
Deanne1407

Deanne1407

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Troy is to be given a bravery award for saving Ben's life that night, it will be officially presented to Ben later this month by Shauna Lowry, the president of the USPCA.

 

Six months had passed yesterday, in our memories it seems like last week, yet, in our hearts, without Troy, it has been an eternity.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Brenda

Brenda

Posted
Posted (edited)

What a terrible experience for you all. What a very brave lad Troy was. :GroupHug:

 

edited to add, although we didn't go through the terrible experience you had, my wonderful, rough collie Brandy died after being attacked by a pit bull. This was many years ago now, but it still haunts me.

Edited by Brenda
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Ian

Ian

Posted
Posted
Troy is to be given a bravery award for saving Ben's life that night, it will be officially presented to Ben later this month by Shauna Lowry, the president of the USPCA.

 

Six months had passed yesterday, in our memories it seems like last week, yet, in our hearts, without Troy, it has been an eternity.

 

 

:GroupHug: :GroupHug: :GroupHug: I'm sure that Troy will always be with you in your hearts and memories. It's a fitting tribute that his courage and sacrifice will now be rewarded. :bigheart3: RIP Troy

Link to comment
Share on other sites
 Share
Go to topic listing
×
×
  • Create New...