Lost Dog Saves Man With Down Syndrome From Nearly Fatal Seizure








They took photos of the dog and made a FOUND flier. Stacey ran off 4,000 color copies. She and Yolanda stuffed mailboxes, put ads on Craigslist.

Yolanda took her boys to the dollar store and bought a collar, leash, ball and brown bed. Her 10-year-old, Azaiah, decided to call the dog RaeLee, pronounced "Riley." He said he had heard it on TV. All afternoon, he walked the dog, threw the ball, laughed while the dog licked his face.

"Don't fall in love with him," Yolanda kept warning.

Her elder son, Christian, 21, watched through the window. Christian has Down syndrome and an array of other ailments. He has had heart surgery, a kidney transplant. He can't speak or bathe himself.

That night, when the boys climbed into their bunk beds, the dog dragged his new bed from Yolanda's living room, down the long hall, into their room.



He loved roughhousing with Azaiah, knew to be gentle with Christian. He almost never barked.

On Saturday, Azaiah went to his dad's house. Christian retreated to his room to watch a Barney video. The dog dozed beside him.


As she opened the door, the dog sprinted across the living room, into the boys' room.



"If he hadn't come to get me," Yolanda told Stacey later, "the neurologist said Christian would have choked on his own blood and died."



Stacey got a call the next morning. A man named Randy had recognized his lost dog and called the number on the flier.

Stacey sobbed. She had been working so hard to find the dog's owner. Now that he had found her, everything seemed wrong.

She quizzed the man to make sure the dog was really his: Is the dog fixed? What tricks does he do? The man answered things only an owner could. His name is Odie, the man said.

Randy Cliff, 34, is an unemployed plumber who lives six blocks from Yolanda with his wife, their four children and infant granddaughter. He said he had been searching for Odie for more than a week.

Stacey told him, "That dog saved my friend's son."


When the van pulled up outside Yolanda's house, the dog raced out and jumped into Randy's arms. Randy buried his face in his dog's soft fur.


As Randy remembers it, he looked at the boy. He saw Christian's frightened face in the window. "Is that your brother?" he asked. Azaiah nodded.

Randy set the dog by Azaiah's feet.

"Maybe Odie was supposed to find you," Randy said. "Maybe you should keep him."

