How do you measure the value of a pet? For one family, that value is immeasurable.
The Busch family got a pretty big scare recently when a dangerous visitor stopped by their Twin Lakes home. It was just nearing dark when Deborah Busch heard a scream from the yard. She rushed out to find her three-year-old son crying. That”s when she heard the frightful sound of a rattlesnake.
The mother”s initial assumption was that her son Joshua had been bitten by the snake. She grabbed him up, jumped in the car and headed for the local hospital. “Strangely,” she said, “he stopped crying in the car. I asked him if he had been bitten and he said ?no”.”
She said she wasn”t taking any chances and continued to the hospital. When they arrived, she stripped her little boy down to check for bite marks but said she found nothing.
On the way home from the hospital, Busch said she learned the reality of the event. While en route back to Twin Lakes, she said she received a call from her daughter. “She told me to hurry home because Charlene, our dog, got bit by the snake on her foot. She said that (the dog) was lying down and that she was bleeding,” Busch recalled. “That”s when it hit me; Charlene had saved Joshua”s life.”
The Busch family called the veterinarian”s office and obtained advice on how to treat the animal. “Everyone prayed that God would heal her and by morning the swelling in her foot went down,” Busch explained.
Charlene, an eight-month old, 35-pound, German Sheppard-mix came to be part of the Busch family on one of Deborah Busch”s trips to a local store. “She was a free dog I rescued from Wal-Mart,” she said. “You save them and they seem to turn around and save you back. I am so thankful!”
Contact Denise Rockenstein at drockenstein@clearlakeobserver.com.
