The Will to Live

I wripped out this article from this month's issue of PEOPLE magazine, while eating lunch at work yesterday. I just think that it is amazing.... that this dog had such a will to live, and had the instict to save himself. You have heard horror stories of humans cutting their arms off to survive, I cannot believe a dog has done the same. It just allows me to believe even stronger that animals arent just "animals" that they do indeed have a smart, functioning, brain, and a heart, and are just as soulfoul as us <3

ANDRE CHEWED OFF HIS PAWS TO LIVE
Caught in a wolf trap outside Wasilla, Alaska in winter, the scrappy stray mutt gnawed through both left paws to free himself. On the verge of dying, he was saved by Karen McNaught of Alaska Dog & Puppy Rescue. Andre slowly regained his health- but now his gait. McNaught contacted Denver-based OrthoPets, which agreed to make legs at a greatly reduced cost. (Theyre usually $600-800 each) Andre was flown there, fitted for hypoallergenic foam-lined legs and son afer was playing fetch; says new owner Pasu Tivorat, 29: "He can do anything a normal dog can. He has a little hitch in his giddyap but walks just fine." Andre's owner knows when its time to strap on the legs because he holds his front stump out like "are you going to put it on yet" with a silly look on his face.

WINTER LOST HER TAIL

In a crab trap, just 3 month old dolphin Winter's tail was mutilated. She wasnt expected to survive. But not long after she arrived at the Clearwater Marine Aquarium in Florida, Winter learned to swim by swishing her stub side to side. A movement that could ultimately damage her spine. A dolphin's tail needs to go up & down. To encourage that motion, Winter now practice with a silicon prostethic over her tail. Costing $25,000 as a Gift. Now the 6-Ft long, 225 Lbs, Winter gets new ones as she grows and she wears them an hour each day & is doing great!!!

BEAUTY SURVIVED A GUNSHOT

When rescuers found the bald eagle in an Alaskan landfill, she was starving, unable to catch prey after losing her beak to a gunshot wound. After Beauty arrived at a bird sanctuary in Maries, Idahoe- biologist Jane Cantwell put together a team that included a dentist & an aerospace engineer to fashion a plastic beak. Attached by epoxy glie and a screw, this temporary denture will be replaced by a titanium one, costing several hundred thousand dollars. Yet even with the new beak, she remains unable to rend prey & cannot be released into the wild.

ALLISON THE SHARK VICTIM

Since losing 3 flippers to a shark attack in 2005, Allison the green sea turtle could only swim in circles & could not resurface the water after diving. "It was like paddling with only one oar," says Jeff George, curator at the Sea Turtle Inc, in South Padre Island, Texas. Efforts to attache a prosthetic flipper to her front left nub failed. An intern, Tom Wilson, using about $25 in supplised, cobbled together a neoprene suit with a Velcro attached polycarbon fiber fin. The fin sits atop Allison like a shark's fin, and allows her to now swim straight & to dive! "She seems pretty happy now," says George.