Everyone who has a pet treats them like they are a part of their family. But they also know that the behavior of a pet can get really confusing at times. You feel like you know your pet and understand them, but do you?
Sadie and Bella, two Labradors, have the most caring owner they could’ve ever wished for. Maureen Hatcher is a 62-year-old woman who has given all her life to the Labradors and considers them her children.
But when she sees what her dogs are up to against her, she is left speechless.
St. Johns, Jacksonville is a quiet suburb in Florida and all the neighbors know each other since it’s a very small place. The crime rates have been really low in the area and therefore nobody has ever been scared about anything, they always felt safe.
Sadie and Bella were two Labradors who were famous around the neighborhood. They were everyone’s favorite and were loved by all. However, things are not always as they seem to be. The cute Labradors were going to do something that would scare the neighbors to the core.
Maureen had taken care of the Labradors since they were little, and has loved them unconditionally. Hatcher is 62-year-old and lives with her grandson Tyler. But on the day of this incident, Miss Hatcher was alone at home, and everything was going to change. 
It was a normal day, and Hatcher was going about her daily routine. She had fed breakfast to Sadie and Bella and was preparing her own breakfast before going to take a shower, till the water could get warm for a perfect bath. She was not aware of what was going to happen next.
Alexandria lived right next to Maureen, and had decided to do something different that morning. She wanted to take a break from her morning schedule and sip coffee while enjoying the view of her garden. That is when she noticed something strange. 
On the other hand, right after Maureen went in for her bath, her camera captured something ominous, that was very strange. It seemed like the day was a menacing day, where unusual and weird things were happening around the neighborhood. 
None of the residents of St. Johns had ever felt threatened by any kind of danger in the area. No house had fences or high walls to protect them, and it still seemed perfect. But today, Alexandria wished that maybe she should have had fences around her garden.
Alexandria was just about to finish her coffee feeling the light cold breeze of December, when she saw two enormous dogs come running in her garden. She could not understand what was wrong, but was surely scared of the frantic way the dogs were barking in. 
On the other side, Maureen’s camera had caught Sadie and Bella come out of the house after they were barking very loudly inside the house. The footage recorded them unlocking the front door through its handle and running outside insanely.
It was Sadie and Bella who had come to the garden of Alexandria and were barking in a deafening voice.“I usually am very routine, but that day, I didn’t do my usual,” Alexandria recalled. “I was sitting on the floor drinking coffee and saw her (Sadie) outside. Then I heard the other dog barking.”
Alexandria was dreading going in her garden because she was unable to make it as to why the two dogs were behaving so strangely. She was actually afraid of them because it seemed like they had come to harm her. But it was something more than she could ever imagine that they had come to her for. 
Alexandria took a deep breath and decided to go face the dogs and see what they were up to. She kept down her cup of coffee and ran downstairs, doubting each step that she took, if it was the right decision or could she get hurt, or something even worse could happen.
As soon as Alexandria reached her garden, the dogs started to pull her jeans, as if to take her somewhere. That is when Alexandria realized that they were not trying to scare her, they were afraid of themselves. They had seen something unbelievable and they wanted her to see it too. 
Alexandria knew that they were Maureen’s pets and she decided to take them back home. But then she realized that they were themselves running towards their house only, already ahead of her. And after every step they took, they looked back to check if Alexandria was still following them or not.
As soon as Alexandria reached Maureen’s house, she rang the doorbell. All this while, the camera was recording everything and the world was going to witness a very unusual story. Alexandria on the other hand, rang the bell several times, but there is no answer.
With each bell that Alexandria rang, the bark of the dogs kept getting louder. She was afraid now and could not understand what could have gone wrong. Strange thoughts occurred in her mind. Why was Maureen not answering from the other side?
When there was no answer from the other side of the door, very odd thoughts started crossing Alexandria’s mind. What if the dogs had done something to Maureen? What if there was someone else inside who had hurt Maureen? 
Usually in such situations, the first reaction would be to run away so that you don’t get in any kind of trouble. But Alexandria was different. She thought she would investigate further to find out what was wrong and what were the dogs up to.
Instead of turning around and leaving, although terror struck Alexandria to the core, she decided she would go inside and face the reality. She had chosen the difficult option, but that was exactly what she wanted to do and stepped inside the house.
As Alexandria entered inside, Bella and Sadie continued to bark. She was very nervous and kept shouting “Hello?” in the hope of an answer from Maureen. She was clueless as to why the dogs did not stop barking. There could be a lot of possibilities of all that could have gone wrong with Maureen, but where was she? 
The dogs ran towards the kitchen, barking loudly all this while. Alexandria decided to follow them and see where they were going. She followed them to the kitchen first and then to the bedroom. And as soon as she opened the door of the bedroom, she shrieked. 
Before Alexandria could enter the room, Sadie ran inside and jumped directly over the bed. Bella, on the other hand, stepped inside the room and moaned for a few seconds, then silence prevailed. Where could Maureen be?
After coming inside from the bright sunlight, Alexandria could hardly see anything because the whole room was dark. The curtains were also drawn and she tried to adjust her eyes to the darkness. And when she could see inside the room, she was speechless.
With her heart pounding loudly in fear, Alexandria stepped inside the room and towards the bed. With each step she took, she got more and more scared. There was a heap on the top of bed, and as Alexandria looked closely, she saw Maureen lying there, but what happened next made her jump in fear.
Alexandria called out Maureen in a soft and low voice, but there was no reply. Then she went ahead and put a hand on her shoulder to make her aware that she was in the room. When she touches the shoulder, she takes a step back in horror. Maureen was still, there was no movement at all.
After Alexandria shrieked, Maureen made a low groaning sound and raised her head a little, asking for help. Something was wrong with her, and she was in pain. She was trying very hard to get words out of her mouth, but her mouth drooped downwards.
Alexandria immediately called 911. She knew that something was majorly wrong with Maureen, and there was absolutely nothing that she could think of or do on her own to help Maureen except for calling for help. She was scared.
As soon as the doctors investigated Maureen’s condition, they told that her brain was deprived of oxygen and she was unable to breathe. Had there been a delay of even a few minutes, Maureen could have lost her life. 
Alexandria had thought that Sadie and Bella were trying to harm her or Maureen or had hurt her in some way. But she was wrong and felt guilty after she understood what the situation was. The dogs were helping their owners, going out of their way. 
St. Johns County Rescue arrived within minutes, and Sadie and Bella did not leave Maureen’s side until she was taken away. Even after that, they were howling and barking in distress. If it had not been for the dogs, Maureen would not have been in this world. 
“When the brain is deprived of blood, cells die and permanent brain injury can occur. Timing is everything,” Nima Amim Aghaebrahim, an interventional neurologist, explains. And the dogs understood the importance of time. 
Even though Maureen had been taken to the hospital and was being treated, there was no guarantee that she was going to make it through. “One of the most important factors that can lead to a good outcome for patients in these situations is to get the blood vessel opened quickly and successfully,” Aghaebrahim stresses.
After finding the blood clot that had been the cause of the stroke with which Maureen suffered, doctors successfully moved a stent retriever from the femoral artery in Maureen’s leg to her neck. “It’s one of the highlights of our career that we’re able to help people such as Mrs. Hatcher,” Dr. Aghaebrahim explains.
The surgeons at Baptist Medical Center Jacksonville had cleared the clot from Maureen’s body and miraculously, she had even started gaining strength right after her surgery. And just three days later, she was healthy enough to be discharged from the hospital. 
Maureen owned her life to Sadie and Bella. They had gone out of their way, in fact, out of everyone’s imagination and thinking, and had done something no one could have ever thought of. Without them, Maureen couldn’t even imagine where she would have been. 
Maureen says tearfully, “I am blessed I don’t have any residual effects, and I attribute that to Dr. Nima and what the staff there did for me.” But she knows that the doctors surgery, treatment, and Alexandria’s help was all possible because of her dogs. 
“Had it not been for my dogs going and getting my neighbor, I wouldn’t be here today,” she said. “I had an angel across the street, I had a great rescue in the neighborhood, and the hospital. By rights I shouldn’t be in the shape that I’m in, I am blessed.”
All the neighbors were more than impressed as to how Bella and Sadie had helped Maureen. “…The next thing I knew, I was eating the floor and couldn’t move, And I said to my girls [the dogs], ‘I need help.’” she recalls. “Someone asked me, ‘How did you train them to do that? And I just told them, ‘I didn’t train them.’”
Since the dogs had been more than just loving pets to Maureen, she decided to do something special for them to make them feel that they are precious. “There were presents under the tree and prime rib for dinner, and they were spoiled rotten,” she said, laughing.
Maureen, Sadie and Bella’s story soon went viral on the internet and people could not get enough of how lovely the dogs were. One person commented, “Dogs are amazingly sensitive to human emotions; they can pick up on the smallest distress signals and help. I’m so happy that you have two wonderful pups that’s a family to keep you safe and loved.”
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