Shelter dog
IN PHOTO: A dog looks out of its at the animal welfare center in Tokushima, March 11, 2010. It's a dog's life for a stray mutt in any country, but in Japan a canine that ends up in the municipal pound is far more likely to be put down than to find a new home. While in some other industrialised countries the idea of "saving" a pet from a shelter is well-established, in Japan animal welfare activists say strays often fall foul of an attitude that prizes puppies and pedigrees as status symbols. Reuters/Kim Kyung-Hoon

A fireman from the United Kingdom saved a life of a puppy by performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation, or CPR, after being trapped in a burning dog kennel. The dog was a tiny terrier, and was amongst the 10 dogs who were saved after the accident in Little Hutton in Manchester.

When emergency officer Dale Chetto retrieved the eight-month old puppy without pulse, he placed an oxygen mask to it and immediately gave it a heart massage. “He was only small, I could hold him in my hand, and when I first pulled him out I could not feel a pulse,” Chetto recalled. “The heart massage is exactly the same as you would do with an adult, although I put a breathing mask with oxygen in it on him instead of doing mouth to mouth.” Five minutes into the massage, Chetto suddenly felt the dog’s chest beating.

One of the neighbours named Chris Whitehead witnessed the incident and was positive that the dog was already dead after being pulled out from the burning kennel. The firefighter then placed the dog on the ground and did some interventions, and soon the dog opened its eyes; it was very emotional, he said. He added that the death of the other dogs were such a letdown as they were not maltreated and were looked after well.

According to John Duffin, watch manager from Farnworth fire station, the fire spread so rapidly that the height of the fire was the same as the house’s when they arrived. He reported during the distressing scene, the firefighters were able to practice the skills they learned in training, and hence did an amazing job in fighting the fire.

The authorities are looking at a heat lamp knocked by a dog to be the cause of the fire. Although eight pets survived, four died in the accident as the fire spread throughout the garden of the house. Two adults and six children reportedly survived.

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