A Port Hardy chihuahua/dachshund cross named Babygyrl is being credited with saving a teenage boy’s life.
On July 5, “my friend Gunus Dekhe was walking his dog Babygyrl when she dashed into the brush and wouldn’t come back,” Garth Holden told the Gazette.
Dekhe followed Babygyrl, who refused to come back or budge from the brush, and “that’s when he saw the boy unconscious and unresponsive, made a 911 call, an ambulance came, and transported the boy up to the hospital,” said Holden. “I just thought Babygyrl should get the credit for being the hero that she is.”
In an interview, Dekhe said he and Babygyrl were walking at the corner of the parking lot between the Bargain Store and Providence Place when she took off. Babygyrl is typically “glued to me, and for her to not come back is unusual. She made me go her.”
As Dekhe got closer to the brush he finally saw a boy’s head and shoulder just visible through the brush. “I would never have seen him, but Babygyrl found him and started licking his head.”
Although she is estimated to be about five years old, Babygyrl has had a storied past. She and her sister were abandoned by their previous owners on an island about 200 miles north of here, said Dekhe.
Her sister died and Babygyrl was “caught in a live trap and was shipped to me in Bella Bella. I’ve had her about three years,” he said.
“She came into my life at a time when I needed rescuing. I was really sad and she gave me a reason, and a want, to live. She brings out the joy in me. The gentleness in me. She came into my life and saved me.”