Winslow
12-30-2006, 10:46 AM
The below is a cool article about a dog, a 120 lb Rhodesian Ridgeback, that rescued a girl from abduction from an intruder back in 1998:
_______________________________________________
By John Grogan
Philadelphia Inquirer Columnist
When the kidnapper slipped into 8-year-old Laura Staples' bedroom on that Sunday night in 1998, he failed to consider one important point.
The Stapleses' Hatboro home was armed with a powerful secret weapon hardwired to prevent just such a crime. A weapon at once potentially deadly but guaranteed to never accidentally harm a family member.
The weapon was not a handgun or assault rifle or howitzer. It didn't answer to the name of Glock or Colt or Ruger.
It answered to the name of Rocky. And it was 120 pounds of finely tuned, rippling-muscled Rhodesian ridgeback dog.
The intruder flashed a knife and cupped his hand over Laura's mouth as her parents, Michael and Joan, slept in the next room. "She gave it her best fight, but the creep got the upper hand and started down the stairs with her," her father recalled last week.
As the girl struggled helplessly against him, her foot knocked a picture off the wall.
The noise was not enough to rouse her parents, but it did awaken Rocky, who had been sleeping on the third floor - where he wasn't supposed to be - with Laura's older sister, Megan.
The dog charged down the stairs, teeth bared, and lunged. "The bad guy tried to use Laura as a shield, but Rocky was too smart for that," Mike Staples recounted. "He bit the bastard wherever he could."
Irrefutable evidence
The intruder dropped Laura and ran for the door. Rocky chased him down and clamped his powerful jaws over the man's forearm, leaving a gruesome wound that forensic experts would later use to tie a suspect arrested nearby to the crime.
By now, Laura's screams filled the house, and her father ran downstairs brandishing a loaded handgun he kept in the house for self-defense. The bad man was already gone, and it was a good thing, Staples realized.
His adrenaline was pumping, heart pounding, temples throbbing. Screams filled the air. Confusion reigned. In mere seconds, from a dead sleep, he was trying to process an aborted crime that could have shattered his family forever. Staples, an experienced hunter and shooting enthusiast, was in no shape to be making life-or-death decisions with a loaded weapon.
"I was out of body. I wasn't Mike Staples. I was Hulk Hogan suddenly. I would have had no problem blowing someone's brains out," the father said.
To this day, it unnerves him to think what might have happened had he, not Rocky, confronted the kidnapper on the stairs, he holding a gun, the bad guy holding Laura.
"Had I been in the mix with the gun, bad things could have happened," he said. "When you have a 120-pound dog charging down the stairs at you, there are no hostage negotiations."
Eternally grateful
Eight years have passed since that horrible night. Frankie Burton, a convicted child molester, was convicted in the kidnapping attempt and sent to prison for 42 to 118 years. Laura is 16 now, a junior at Hatboro-Horsham High School, where she runs cross-country. With the help of years of therapy, the psychological wounds are slowly washing away.
Rocky, an incorrigible bad boy who more than once was brought home in the backseat of a police car after breaking loose to romance the female canines of Hatboro, got steak dinners, a parade, and the 2000 National Dog Hero Award, given by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Los Angeles.
More importantly, he earned his family's eternal gratitude.
Three years ago, veterinarians diagnosed cancer in Rocky. He died on May 12, 2004, on the night before his ninth birthday. "The sense of loss, it was unfathomable," Staples said. "This dog saved our family. There are no words to express the emotion or the pain."
The Stapleses have a new bad-boy dog now. His name is Junior, and he can often be found sleeping at Laura's feet.
Staples is a sportsman who is comfortable around guns. But he thinks his family's experience serves as a good lesson for anyone considering buying a weapon for home protection.
"I've thought about the gun thing a lot," he said. "After the bad guy, I just locked mine up. Guns don't work in the house. A dog is really the best thing. Which is why I tell everyone I know, don't get a gun, get a dog."
Philadelphia Inqyuirer Article dated December 29, 2006 (http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/local/states/pennsylvania/counties/montgomery_county/16340250.htm?source=rss&channel=inquirer_montgomery_county)
_______________________________________________
By John Grogan
Philadelphia Inquirer Columnist
When the kidnapper slipped into 8-year-old Laura Staples' bedroom on that Sunday night in 1998, he failed to consider one important point.
The Stapleses' Hatboro home was armed with a powerful secret weapon hardwired to prevent just such a crime. A weapon at once potentially deadly but guaranteed to never accidentally harm a family member.
The weapon was not a handgun or assault rifle or howitzer. It didn't answer to the name of Glock or Colt or Ruger.
It answered to the name of Rocky. And it was 120 pounds of finely tuned, rippling-muscled Rhodesian ridgeback dog.
The intruder flashed a knife and cupped his hand over Laura's mouth as her parents, Michael and Joan, slept in the next room. "She gave it her best fight, but the creep got the upper hand and started down the stairs with her," her father recalled last week.
As the girl struggled helplessly against him, her foot knocked a picture off the wall.
The noise was not enough to rouse her parents, but it did awaken Rocky, who had been sleeping on the third floor - where he wasn't supposed to be - with Laura's older sister, Megan.
The dog charged down the stairs, teeth bared, and lunged. "The bad guy tried to use Laura as a shield, but Rocky was too smart for that," Mike Staples recounted. "He bit the bastard wherever he could."
Irrefutable evidence
The intruder dropped Laura and ran for the door. Rocky chased him down and clamped his powerful jaws over the man's forearm, leaving a gruesome wound that forensic experts would later use to tie a suspect arrested nearby to the crime.
By now, Laura's screams filled the house, and her father ran downstairs brandishing a loaded handgun he kept in the house for self-defense. The bad man was already gone, and it was a good thing, Staples realized.
His adrenaline was pumping, heart pounding, temples throbbing. Screams filled the air. Confusion reigned. In mere seconds, from a dead sleep, he was trying to process an aborted crime that could have shattered his family forever. Staples, an experienced hunter and shooting enthusiast, was in no shape to be making life-or-death decisions with a loaded weapon.
"I was out of body. I wasn't Mike Staples. I was Hulk Hogan suddenly. I would have had no problem blowing someone's brains out," the father said.
To this day, it unnerves him to think what might have happened had he, not Rocky, confronted the kidnapper on the stairs, he holding a gun, the bad guy holding Laura.
"Had I been in the mix with the gun, bad things could have happened," he said. "When you have a 120-pound dog charging down the stairs at you, there are no hostage negotiations."
Eternally grateful
Eight years have passed since that horrible night. Frankie Burton, a convicted child molester, was convicted in the kidnapping attempt and sent to prison for 42 to 118 years. Laura is 16 now, a junior at Hatboro-Horsham High School, where she runs cross-country. With the help of years of therapy, the psychological wounds are slowly washing away.
Rocky, an incorrigible bad boy who more than once was brought home in the backseat of a police car after breaking loose to romance the female canines of Hatboro, got steak dinners, a parade, and the 2000 National Dog Hero Award, given by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Los Angeles.
More importantly, he earned his family's eternal gratitude.
Three years ago, veterinarians diagnosed cancer in Rocky. He died on May 12, 2004, on the night before his ninth birthday. "The sense of loss, it was unfathomable," Staples said. "This dog saved our family. There are no words to express the emotion or the pain."
The Stapleses have a new bad-boy dog now. His name is Junior, and he can often be found sleeping at Laura's feet.
Staples is a sportsman who is comfortable around guns. But he thinks his family's experience serves as a good lesson for anyone considering buying a weapon for home protection.
"I've thought about the gun thing a lot," he said. "After the bad guy, I just locked mine up. Guns don't work in the house. A dog is really the best thing. Which is why I tell everyone I know, don't get a gun, get a dog."
Philadelphia Inqyuirer Article dated December 29, 2006 (http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/local/states/pennsylvania/counties/montgomery_county/16340250.htm?source=rss&channel=inquirer_montgomery_county)