Ruth and Lady have been inducted into the 50th annual Purina Animal Hall of Fame for saving their owner’s life.
Matthew Smith was on his way home from Kelowna in April 2017 when he lost control of his car and crashed down an embankment.
Smith ended up outside his vehicle with severe injuries, which included head trauma, a lacerated liver and multiple broken ribs.
“I’m not sure how I got there,” he said.
The dogs lay with Smith as the temperature dropped down to freezing.
Hours later, Eric Leighty, a homeowner living nearby, returned from work to find Ruth and Lady barking on his driveway.
“And as I got closer, I noticed a vehicle to the left-hand side all smashed up,” Leighty said.
“His truck was black. You couldn’t see it. If the dogs weren’t there, I don’t think anybody would have seen him until the next morning.”
He followed them to Smith, who was bleeding on the ground in critical condition. Leighty called 911.
“Lady didn’t want to leave his side. She just laid right beside him,” first responder Graeme Headley said. “I didn’t even try to move her because I just thought that was the right thing, to have the dog with him.”
Smith credits the dogs with saving his life.
“Mounting research in the area of canine cognition has shown that dogs are highly skilled at communicating with humans, learning from their companions and understanding us – perhaps even better than we understand ourselves,” said Ragen McGowan, a senior scientist in Purina’s behaviour group.
“Countless studies support the notion that dogs pay very close attention to the humans in their lives, attend to changes in human attention states, and take the perspective of humans into account in order to adjust their own behaviour.”
Ruth is a two-year-old Akbash-Yellow Labrador-Border Collie cross. Lady is a seven-year-old Yellow Labrador-Border Collie.
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