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Wrigley’s story has saved many animals’ lives
By ALEXANDRA CALDWELL
| Article published on Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2009 |
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![[Image]](/content_images/021809_cit-01.jpg) |
| Photo by ALEXANDRA CALDWELL |
| Wrigley, an American bulldog, checks out an animal oxygen mask. |
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CLEARWATER – In the fall of 2005, Clearwater Fire and Rescue struggled to get oxygen to a 75-pound American Bulldog named Wrigley. All Firefighter Doug Swartz had to work with was a human oxygen mask that poorly fit the dog’s large snout.
Wrigley’s owner had committed suicide by running a hose from his running car’s exhaust pipe into the house and left a note that said he was taking his best friend with him. But Wrigley was not ready to die.
Rick Chaboudy, executive director of the Suncoast Animal League in Palm Harbor, joined Wrigley on his long ride to the veterinarian hospital and watched Swartz struggle with the human oxygen mask.
The incident spurred him to raise funds to purchase sets of animal oxygen masks for all the emergency vehicles in Pinellas County so other animals could get needed oxygen.
Now Chaboudy and Clearwater Fire and Rescue ask the public again for help replacing about 50 sets of masks that have deteriorated or were destroyed in the past few years.
Wrigley spent a few difficult days at the veterinarian hospital, but finally Chaboudy was told that Wrigley could not see, hear or stand and that his brain was soup. Chaboudy promised Wrigley’s owner’s mother that he would give Wrigley one last hug good-bye. He sat down near the dog and said a few words. Suddenly, Wrigley wagged his tail. He can hear, Chaboudy thought. Wrigley struggled to his feet. He could stand.
Chaboudy helped Wrigley outside to the yard and all of a sudden a butterfly fluttered in front of Wrigley’s nose. Wrigley wagged his tail and followed the butterfly around the yard. He could see.
Wrigley finally made a full recovery just as Jessica Martin of Dunedin decided she wanted a dog. Martin walked past rows of adaptable pets, saw Wrigley and stopped. That’s the dog for her, she thought.
Then she learned his story. She had to have Wrigley.
About a month ago, Chaboudy received a letter from Martin asking for help. Wrigley had been diagnosed with cancer in his front, right leg. Chaboudy contacted Veterinarian Elizabeth Baird.
“Most dogs this size won’t walk again if they lose a front leg,” Chaboudy said. “And at this point it had been three months since the diagnosis, and the average life span is four months. So I said, Rick, I want to help, but I’ve got to talk to these people and I have to meet the dog and see if he’s a candidate. And in comes Wrigley.
Wrigley doesn’t know the meaning of the word no. He came in, and the bottom part of his leg where the cancer was was greatly swollen. It looked tremendously painful, but he charged right in to say hi to everybody. So it was very clear that Wrigley had the right spirit.”
Baird worried Wrigley would not be able to support his big, barrel chest with only one front leg, but to her surprise, Wrigley stood and walked only 12 hours after surgery.
Hearing from Wrigley again, Chaboudy decided to contact the local fire departments to see if they needed to be restocked with animal oxygen masks. Sure enough, Pinellas County needs about 50 sets. The sets are three masks – a small, cat-sized mask, a medium mask, and a large one for big dogs like Wrigley.
On Feb. 11, 2009, only a day before the scheduled press conference on oxygen masks, there was a fire and explosion at a Dunedin home. Baird lives only a few houses away and ran outside in her bare feet when she heard the explosion. Jingles, an American Eskimo dog, was found in the back yard with his owner. Baird saw a firefighter carrying Jingles out and she asked a sheriff’s deputy to find out if the dog was still alive. She wanted to help.
“When they brought him out, he had a fairly serious concussion,” Baird said at the press conference the next day. “I was told a wall had fallen on him. He had serious trauma to the left side of his face, bleeding around the nose and eyes, burns involving the right side of his body, and even in that fast of time I could already hear that his lungs were in trouble. There was a lot of fluid in there, and of course, he was in shock.”
For the first few minutes, Baird struggled with a human oxygen mask and then asked if anyone had an animal oxygen mask. Yes, the truck had one, thanks to Wrigley. Baird said the oxygen mask helped keep Jingles alive.
“(It was important) not only for the damage to his lungs but also getting oxygen into the brain in a concussion is critical,” Baird said. “So the fact that we could get oxygen into this dog was just huge.”
Chaboudy agreed that the mask helped save Jingles’ life.
“It definitely did,” Chaboudy said. “That’s what revived him. The thing is, it fits. Before they had human oxygen masks and therefore the oxygen escaped. In some cases, the animal would not get the necessary amount of oxygen and may not have survived.”
Swartz, the firefighter who saved Wrigley, was also on the Dunedin call. He said the fire department is blessed to have the animal oxygen masks on their trucks.
“We don’t use them on every call, but boy, when something happens like yesterday, when we need them, it is the way to go because we struggled a long time with Wrigley in the driveway three and a half years ago, and they can bring some good out of the situation,” Swartz said at the press conference. Swartz is now an assistant fire chief with Clearwater Fire and Rescue.
Clearwater Fire Chief Jamie Geer said the fire department is fortunate to have a partnership with Suncoast Animal League and that the animal oxygen masks are important to have.
“People might not realize just how common it is for us to find pets in burning structures,” Geer said. “We don’t have stats to prove it, but in my experience we’re about 10 times more likely to find a pet in a burning home than we are to find a resident in the burning home. So it happens far more often than you might think.”
Jingles is now off of oxygen and is breathing on his own and there does not appear to be any lung damage, Chaboudy said. However, brain swelling is a problem and the veterinarians do not know how bad that is or if there is neurological damage because the dog is still on heavy doses of pain medication. Medical bills are mounting.
Wrigley is doing much better since his operation. Martin, his owner, said he is a changed dog.
“We thought for a while he was kind of lazy and mopey and we thought, oh, he’s just getting old,” Martin said. “And then the cancer came and after the leg came off, he’s like a puppy again. He runs, he plays, he’s smiling all the time, and we’re like, he was not even close to getting old. He still has a lot of life in him. He is like a brand new dog.”
Still, medical bills for Wrigley are high, and Martin can not manage them on her own. Chaboudy and Clearwater Fire and Rescue ask the public for help in raising funds for Jingles’ and Wrigley’s medical bills as well as funds for 50 more sets of oxygen masks, which cost about $70 a set.
Donations can be mailed to Suncoast Animal League, 1030 Pennsylvania Ave., Palm Harbor, FL 34683 with Wrigley’s name written on the envelope.
“We look at Wrigley as having a special purpose that he keeps defying all these logics and he’s still around,” Chaboudy said. “It’s hard to tell how many animals’ lives he’s saved and touched because of what happened to him, but then this happened, so we’re excited to make sure all the emergency vehicles in Pinellas County are equipped and to make people aware and know how to use these so they can save more animals lives.”
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Article published on Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2009
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