this is crazy... i bolded the cool things cuz i know ya'll wont read it if i dont...
Half-Breed Wolf Dog Hero Rescues Elderly Owners From
Snowstorm
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
By Liza Porteus 
NEW YORK — When Eve and Norman Fertig rescued a sick, two-week-old
half wolf, half German shepherd puppy from a breeder almost seven years ago,
they'd never dreamed that the animal one day would save their
lives.
"God is watching; he's watching all the time," Eve Fertig told FOXNews from
her home at the Enchanted Forest Wildlife Sanctuary in Alden, N.Y.
He apparently was watching on Oct. 12, when the 81-year-old Fertigs were
treating injured animals in the forest sanctuary on their property. One such
animal is a near-18-year-old raven, while another is a crow who was shot, blind
in one eye with two broken legs.
It was routine for the couple to feed and exercise the dozen or so animals
there around 7 p.m. every night.
"While we're in there, the lights go out and I realized something's wrong,"
Eve Fertig said. "We go outside to see what's happening and down comes one
massive tree … the trees came down across us."
The massive storm that hit upstate New York that night felled trees, blocking
the Fertig's path to the other sanctuary buildings — such as the school and
storage building — and to their home, which was at least 200 feet away.
We were in big trouble. … I said to my husband, 'I think we could die out
here,'" Eve said.
'The Most Heroic Thing I've Ever Seen'
The Fertigs huddled in a narrow alley between the hospital building and the
aviary, where they were sheltered from falling trees. They couldn't climb over
the trees without injuring themselves. Neither had warm clothes on since it was
a clear, crisp fall day just a few hours ago. They hugged each other for warmth,
since by 9:30 p.m., temperatures had dropped.
"I wasn't prepared for this … I thought, 'we're trapped, we're absolutely
trapped,'" Eve said. "That's when Shana began to dig beneath the fallen
trees."
The 160-pound dog that habitually follows her owners around — Eve likens it
to "Mary had a little lamb," when the lamb went everywhere Mary went —
eventually found the Fertigs and began digging a path in the snow with her teeth
and claws underneath the fallen trees, similar to a mineshaft, and barking as if
to tell them to follow.
A reluctant Norm said, "I had enough in Okinawa in a foxhole," referring to
his service in World War II.
"'Norman, if you do not follow me, I will get a divorce,'" Eve said to her
husband of 62 years. "That did it. He said, 'a divorce? That would scandal our
family.' I said, 'all of our family is dead, Norman!'"
After Shana tunneled all the way to the house — a process that took until
about 11:30 p.m. — she came back, grabbed the sleeve of Eve's jacket, and threw
the 86-pound woman over her back and neck, which Eve described as "as wide as
our kitchen shelf."
Norman grabbed Eve's legs, and the dog pulled them through the tunnel, under
the trees and through an opening in a fence to the house, at which they arrived
around 2 a.m.
"It was the most heroic thing I've ever seen in my life," Eve said. "We
opened the door and we just fell in and she laid on top of us and just stayed
there and kept us alive … that's where we laid until the fireman found us."
There was no electricity and no heat in the house, so Shana acted as a
living, breathing generator for the exhausted Fertigs until the local fire
department arrived the next morning.
Concerned neighbors — many of whom had children Eve taught — who couldn't get
hold of the elderly couple via telephone throughout the night had called the
Town Line Fire Department.
But when the fire department urged the Fertigs to go to the firehouse to take
shelter along with 100 others, they told them they would have to leave Shana
behind.
"We said, 'we don't go anywhere without her.' ... I said, 'we'll stay until
the people are gone and we'll take Shana,'" Eve said.
So the couple stayed at home with Shana until Sunday, when the firehouse
emptied out. During the three days in a house with no power, heat or hot water,
Shana slept with her owners to keep them warm.
"She kept us alive. She really did," Eve said.
Also during that time, firefighters not only helped clear trees from their
grounds, but they brought food and water for both human and animal.
"They kept looking at that tunnel and said, 'we've never seen anything like
it,'" she said. "I can't thank them enough — they're heroes."
When they went to the firehouse Sunday, Shana followed the Fertigs
everywhere, even to the bathroom. And she was 'spoiled rotten' by the fire crews
there, Eve said.
She said the fire chiefs said her story of being saved by her pet rejuvenated
exhausted fire teams. "The story, they said, just gave them new hope."
A Lesson Learned
Last Thursday, Shana received the Citizens for Humane Animal Treatment's
Hero's Award for bravery — an award traditionally given to humans. The plaque,
complete with Shana's picture on it, hangs in the Fertigs' living room, along
with other pictures of wolves the couple has worked with.
Eve, who teaches courses in Saving Endangered Species and Caring for Injured
and Orphaned Wildlife at community colleges and trains animal rehabilitators in
New York, said she hopes her story will help further her message of humanity
toward animals and educate people about how even a wolf, if treated with care
and dignity, can be a "kisser and a hugger" like Shana.
"If you're vicious to a human being, they'll become fighters," Eve said, but
even wolves, "once you treat them right and raise them in your house, they're
magnificent."
Eve has taught 400 adults to be wildlife rehabilitators. She and her husband
are volunteers who pay for their own teaching licenses and caring for the
sanctuary animals, out of their Social Security checks every year.
"I've never been on a cruise and I don't shop and I haven't seen a movie in
two years," Eve said.
The only time the Fertigs go to the movies is, of course, when they are
submitting to a higher calling.
"What I do to get signatures for my petitions, I go to [a] movie that's
showing a wolf, horse or whale story," and she and her husband camp out outside
the theater and get petitions signed to help save various animals, which they
send along to wildlife organizations.
"I have a motto ... joint abilities don't create hostilities," Eve said. "I
make it my business to talk to all groups, all conservationists, all hunting
clubs, to let them know what they're missing out there."
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