Hero Dog Gets Bitten In Snout By Rattlesnake To Protect Owner

A hero dog named Todd was bitten in the face while trying to protect his owner from a hissing rattlesnake during a morning hike through the Arizona desert.

Paula Godwin recounted the incident on Facebook, where she revealed that she was on a walk in Phoenix with Todd and another of her dogs when she almost stepped on a rattlesnake that was slithering through the brush.

Because Todd is a puppy and is lower to the ground than Godwin, he courageously jumped to her rescue and was promptly bitten in the snout. Todd was taken to a local animal hospital and is expected to make a full recovery.

‘This Is What a Hero Looks Like’

“My hero of a puppy Todd saved me,” Paula wrote. “He jumped right in front of my leg w[h]ere I surely would have got bit. This is what a hero looks like.”

Todd has a swollen snout and a bandage on his right paw but is otherwise doing well. Fortunately, Todd has been healing very quickly, and the swelling is rapidly going down.

“He’s doing so well. He is a wonder to me how he is healing,” Godwin wrote in a follow-up post.

https://www.facebook.com/paula.godwin.7/posts/10215860868137457

Paula Godwin posted another photo of Todd in a superhero cape.

https://www.facebook.com/paula.godwin.7/posts/10215876046676911

Dogs add a lot to people’s lives. In addition to providing companionship (especially for older people who live alone), dogs relieve stress, reduce blood pressure, and improve your mood, according to the medical journal Frontiers in Psychology.

The presence of a dog in a classroom at school has been shown to reduce aggressive behavior in a study of first-graders. “In two studies, effects of the presence of friendly dogs on aggressive behavior in a classroom of first-graders were investigated via behavior observation and reports of the classroom teacher,” according to Frontiers in Psychology.

Dogs Relieve Depression And Anxiety

A recent study also found that men with AIDS were less likely to suffer from depression if they owned a pet. Similarly, the benefits of service dogs like police canines, bomb-sniffing combat dogs, and seeing-eye dogs are well-documented.

Sadly, many drug-sniffing police dogs are inadvertently overdosing on the job, leading to premature deaths for these hardworking canines, as the Inquisitr previously reported.

“This is a really big issue,” said Cynthia Otto, director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Working Dog Center. “Lots of these canine officers are exposed and their handlers don’t even know what an overdose looks like [in these animals].”

Drug-Sniffing Police Dogs Are Overdosing On Opioids. 'This is a really big issue,' said one veterinarian. #News https://t.co/MInf6hnZFL

— The Inquisitr (@theinquisitr) June 15, 2018