When Jenna Brousseau and her partner adopted Duke, a sweet dog that used to live in a shelter, they had no idea that one day he would return the favor in the most amazing way possible.
The couple knew that Duke was a dog that was meant to be added to their family right when they first met him. But they just couldn’t imagine what an important role he would play in their lives six years later.
“He’s the perfect dog, he was meant to be ours,” Jenna Brousseau said.
Indeed, six years after adopting Duke, the couple had a daughter, Harper. The dog and the baby seemed to get along very well, and the dog had actually started to develop a special bond with the infant.
Then one night, when Harper was only nine weeks old, Duke jumped onto his parents’ bed trying to show them that something was very wrong.
“He is insanely obedient, so this was extremely bizarre,” Jenna Brousseau told ABC News at the time.
The dog just couldn’t stop shaking on the couple’s bed, making it obvious that he was scared. Although the couple couldn’t understand where this behavior was coming from, they knew there was a reason behind it, and they felt the need to go check on their infant daughter.
Indeed, this is where the problem was. Their baby daughter had stopped breathing. This is what Duke had been trying to alert them about all this time.
The couple who lived in Portland, Connecticut, immediately called 911 and they only hoped for the best.
Soon, the paramedics arrived and revived the baby before transferring her to the nearest hospital to receive proper treatment.
The doctors who treated the baby agreed that she had probably stopped breathing because of acid reflux, in other words, a problem of the sphincter muscle at the lower end of the esophagus that allows the stomach acid to back up into the esophagus.
Whatever the cause, the important thing is that the parents were alerted about it thanks to the family dog.
“If Duke hadn’t been so scared, we would have just gone to sleep,” Jenna admitted.
Duke, the heroic canine, had just saved his little sister.
Thankfully, this little girl was lucky and survived, but studies show that the infant mortality rate was 38.4 per 100,000 live births in 2020.
Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) can happen to any baby, but more vulnerable are those who are born early or have a low birth weight.
Still, SIDS can be prevented, and new parents need to make sure they take some steps that will reduce the possibility of it happening to their baby.
These steps include placing the baby on their back to sleep, leaving the baby’s head uncovered, keeping the baby in the parents’ room for at least the first six months, and using a firm mattress.
Watch the baby’s mother tell the unbelievable story in the video below. Good boy, Duke!
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