To me, and to the many people that they help, there is no doubt that trained service and companion dogs are heroes and lifesavers and so are the organizations that train and place these dogs. But what happens when something goes wrong with one of these organizations? That’s the question right now the California based Eye Dog Foundation for the Blind that is located in Phoenix right now.

There is a custody battle brewing between the Foundation and 25 volunteers, foster families that are raising puppies for the Foundation. These families agreed to foster and raise these puppies, beautiful German Shepherds, take them to training and then relinquish them back to the Foundation so that they could be placed with the blind. Now they are refusing to do so.

Sounds pretty cut and dried, breach of contract, right? Maybe if it were just one or two I could see that perhaps the blame could be placed on the puppy raisers, but all 25 of the volunteers? That says to me that there’s something seriously wrong especially when you couple this with the fact that a former trainer and a former operation manager also say there is a problem with the Foundation.

Now these 25 volunteers are a facing legal battle because they care more for the welfare of the dogs in their care then a legal contract.

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A North Texas woman says her dog saved her life by sniffing out her cancer.

She rescues, saves and fosters dogs and one of those dogs she saved, saved her. It’s been proven scientifically that dogs can smell cancer and this little dog did. Pat credits little Peanut with saving her life.

What a wonderful story and another credit to the benefit of our beloved canine companions!

As one soldier deals with the trauma of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, he’s finding the treatment he needs from an unlikely source. Once again a canine companion proves that dogs are far beyond being ‘just a dog.’

Trained service dog gives retired Sgt. Jim Mason a new leash on life after his years in the military and the the real life nightmares he lived in both Gulf wars and in Somalia - especially Somalia - where his unit was ambushed while trying to provide humanitarian aid.

The cliché is that a dog is man’s best friend. The reality is, Yankee’s a lot more to Jim Mason. He’s indispensable.

If not for their family dog, Buddy, Jason and Heather Breiding of Paducah, Kentucky, may have lost one of their most precious treasures, their one-year-old daughter, Samara.

Jason was cooking when a grease fire broke out. All he thought about was getting the fire extinguished since it didn’t seem too bad.

“I was trying to do anything I could to put it out, that’s what was going through my mind,” said Jason Breiding.

As Jason was fighting the fire, his wife, Heather, grabbed their three-month-old son and got him outside to safety. Jason thought that their daughter, Samara, was also with his wife and son when went to escaped the house but she was still in the now blazing house and so was their family dog, Buddy.

That’s when Buddy became the family hero.

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What an absolute feel good story that I just couldn’t resist sharing! Companion and service dogs have a special place in my heart just because of how absolutely amazing they are, over and above the call of duty.

This wonderful story is about Ilia, a service dog and his person, 10 year old Cole Massie of Los Angeles, CA, who lives with cerebral palsey. Every service dog and their person has a special bond but sometimes those bonds can create miracles….

Recently crowned ASPCA Dog of the Year as part of the 2008 Humane Awards program, Ilia performs service duties like bringing items to Cole in his wheelchair and opening and closing doors. But the pooch also has that special healing touch that can’t be taught. “He provides amazing incentive to Cole during therapies, doctor’s appointments and procedures,” says Cole’s mom, Michelle Massie. “He calms, inspires and motivates my son far better than anyone ever has.”

Or, as Cole sums it up: “I like when he lies next to me in bed at night and we listen to Harry Potter on CD, and that he helps to clean me when I’m in the bath by licking my face and arms. He’s my furry brother and best friend—and a serious bed hog!

This past July, three years after boy and dog were paired by the nonprofit Canine Companions for Independence, Cole was faced with a difficult, but life-changing surgery. “He had walked on his toes, and his feet were totally rolled in,” says Massie. “The operation would allow him to use his feet and free him of the wheelchair.”

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A dog that saved its family from a burning home runs off. Watch the video for more on the family’s desperate search for their dog Sebastian, a dog they rescued who rescued them. Their home caught on fire and if not for Sebastian alerting them, they would not be alive today.

Pssst… be sure to watch all the way to the end!

Buddy, Joe Stalnaker’s trained German Shepherd service dog, proved once again he really is man’s best friend. Not for the first time, Buddy dialed 911 when Stalnaker had a seizure.

Buddy, adopted by Stalnaker at 8 weeks old from Paws with a Cause, was trained to get to a phone when Stlanaker had a seizure and now, at 18 months old, Buddy can hit preprogrammed buttons for 911 and get an emergency operator on the line.

On a recording of the 911 call Wednesday, Buddy is heard whimpering and barking after the dispatcher answers and repeatedly asks if the caller needs help.

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When 85 year old Charles Postler collapsed in his Brooklyn apartment at about 1:30 am on Wednesday morning he was helpless. He managed to grab a pillow and struggle toward the door of his apartment where he lay for hours yelling in vain for help but no one could hear him.

That is until neighbor, Linda Deutsch, was taking her 5 year old Bichon Frise, Lexi, out for a walk at 8 am. Linda thought Lexi was being difficult as the little 12 lb pooch kept pulling at her and refused to get on the elevator. Linda realized that Lexi was trying to take her to the apartment of Charles Postler, who occasionally kept an eye on Lexi.

That’s when Linda hear the faint cries for help coming from behind the door. “She kept pulling away,” Deutsch said. “I didn’t hear anything at first, but then I heard the cry for help.”

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A family dog warns family and helps residents escape a fire in Potomac, Maryland.

We all love hero stories and good news, and here when you hear about a hero, it’s most likely going to be of the canine variety. I’ve written about dogs saving kittens, playing surrogate mother to other animals, saving their owners from burning houses, working as therapy and service dogs. They’re amazing animals, intelligent and intuitive, loving and giving. And although we laud their heroic deeds, to them, they are just doing what they are meant to do or trained to do.

Well, one dog in Argentina in truly a hero and all she did was follow her mothering instincts. La China, a 8 year old mix breed dog, a mother dog caring for her puppies, found a baby that needed a mother.

Now this baby was not another puppy or animal, it was a newborn human baby, only hours old. It’s 14 year old mother had the baby prematurely and panicked, she left the baby in a field surrounded by boxes and trash.

La China found the little 8 lb 13 oz. boy and somehow she managed to carry the baby over 50 yards, back to her home in the field and snuggled him in with her 6 own puppies.

The dog’s owner heard the baby crying in the field behind his house and investigated, finding the baby covered with a rag being kept warm with La China and the puppies. It was only 37 degrees and if the dog had not found the baby, it most likely would not have survived.

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This is one pitbull that was very appropriately named, ‘Angel’, especially to some abandoned kittens!

Nevada Humane Society shelter volunteers, Frank Gomez and 9-year-old stepson Joel Fontes, were out walking one of the shelter dogs, Angel, a 2 year old female pitbull/boxer, when her attention was drawn toward something in the bushes. She could not be distracted.

Finally Gomez decided to investigate to see what Angel was so obsessed with and he found a box of tiny three week old scared, hungry kittens that someone had callously dumped. The temps were in the 90s and if Angel hadn’t found the babies, it’s doubtful they would had survived.

One of the tiny kittens tried to scamper away from its would be rescuers before a shelter worker could be summoned to take the kittens to safety. Angel wasn’t having any of it! She tracked down the the tiny runaway kitten and brought it safely back where she gave it to Gomez.

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