It’s not every day you hear about a Dog biting Toe off! We all know that obviously under normal circumstances we wouldn’t be praising our beautiful little pooch for an occurrence like this. But in this case, Kiko only had much praise for his effort.
Kiko, the Terrier, had managed to save his owner’s life in an extraordinary way.
The event occurred when Jerry Douthette came home from having had too many margaritas from the night’s entertainment. He managed to pass out on his bed andÂ
little Kiko, his Terrier, had managed to chew off Jerry’s toe.
Before the incident occurred, Rosee, Jerry’s partner, thought the best thing he could do would be to sleep it off. Although, shortly after making sure Douthette was in bed, she heard screaming coming from the bedroom “My toes gone, my toes gone!”
Douthette remembers recalling looking at Kiko next to him on the bed, looking down and seeing blood everywhere at his feet. He recalls;
It was gone. I remember the feeling of shock, and scanned the area but still couldn’t see my toe anywhere, he must have eaten it!
Kiko’s act wasn’t just some crazy thing on his behalf, as the story deepens. A few months earlier, Jerry spotted something silver on his toe, and picked at it, trying to remove it but to no avail. He pulled at it that much that his skin ended up swelling and got infected.
Douthette had said, “Because of the infection, it started to smell and dogs having the great noses they do, this was something I was trying to hide”. Nearly every house he visited had dogs coming over to his feet.
Around this time, his partner, Rosee, being a registered nurse, had seen his toe. She continued to insist that he needed to get it checked out by a doctor. She had already mentioned about me potentially having diabetes because of his brother dying from it a couple of years earlier. “It was something I didn’t want to do, and probably wouldn’t have if not for the incident happening with Kiko.”
Rosee, after the yelling, got Douthett in the car as fast as possible and drove him to the hospital. Once the shock had passed and the realisation that Kiko had eaten off his toe, the Doctors, found his blood sugar levels were extremely high, several times higher than the normal range which, of course, can be fatal and was diagnosed with Type-2 diabetes. Also, found an infection in the bone.
Dogs have brilliant olfactory receptors, four and half times more powerful than us humans. Kiko was able to smell the infection, which might have caused an irrational reaction from the little Terrier.
Initially thought, but because of Kiko’s efforts, chewing off his toe helped saved Douthette’s life. The Doctors had said it was lucky that he got there when he did.
Dogs biting off peoples toes is not the first time that this has occurred. Another lady, 56-years-young, two years earlier, had had her little dog do the same thing. The lady, having diabetes, had neuropathy in her foot. There was massive nerve damage, and she wasn’t able to feel it when it was happening. In this case, she sadly euthanised her dog.
Kiko was under house quarantine by Kent County Animal Shelter Services for a time, to ensure there were no signs of rabies. And Douthette is forever grateful to his little Kiko. If not for him doing what he did, he might not even be here.
Meanwhile, as things have quietened down in their household, on a funny note, it’s the highlight of the month with his friends trying to find as many puns as humanly possible. Douthette now proclaims that his drinking days are over for good.
All praises for our little superhero Kiko!
