Up for award...pet dog who sniffed out deadly infection

A DOG is up for an award for saving the lives of her pregnant owner and unborn baby by sniffing out a deadly kidney infection.

Alhanna Butler, 24, explained yesterday how she had experienced sickness and intense back pain at 16 weeks of pregnancy.

Doctors said symptoms were a normal part of pregnancy but Keola, a four-year-old American Akita, began behaving strangely.

She started suddenly following Alhanna, pawing at her and howling if she left the house.

Wrong

After two weeks, Miss Butler then felt very ill and knew something was seriously wrong when Keola sat down right in front of her, stared her in the face and would not move.

“Keola had never done anything like that before,” she said. “I had a gut feeling she was trying to tell me something so I went to hospital and said I needed a doctor.”

Miss Butler, from Doncaster, collapsed while waiting in a hospital corridor and woke up in intensive care, where she spent three weeks being treated for an aggressive double kidney infection which had spread to her bloodstream.

Doctors told the support worker that if she had waited another day to come in, it is unlikely she or her unborn son, Lincoln, who is now a healthy three-year-old, would have survived.

Keola has been shortlisted for pet care company Drontal’s Trusted Companion award.

Miss Butler said: “She saved my life. She could obviously smell something was wrong with me and she was really worried.”

She and partner Ricky Burdis, 28, had been told to get rid of Keola when she found out she was pregnant in case the pet did not get on with their child.

But Miss Butler said: “Everyone told me to get rid of her as they can be aggressive but she saved both of us and now she is best friends with my son, she is like his guardian angel.”