Barking dog alerts Middlesex owner to save mom

By Alex Roarty, Sentinel Reporter, March 21, 2008

Last updated: Friday, March 21, 2008 11:16 AM EDT

A dog that refused to listen to its owner might have saved a life.

Joy Campbell, who lives in Middlesex Township, was preparing for work a little after 4 a.m. Thursday when her Irish water spaniel refused to stop barking at Campbell’s mother, Gayle Gipe.

Campbell had already checked on her 77-year-old mother, who has diabetes. She thought she was sleeping.

“I was hollering at (the dog) to be quiet,” Campbell said.

But 5-year-old Miahann didn’t listen.

Frustrated, Campbell walked to her mother’s room to quiet the dog, and what she saw there shocked her.

It turns out, the dog knew something she didn’t.

Gipe was moaning in her chair, her tongue swollen. She was falling into a diabetic coma, a potentially lethal condition caused by, in this case, a low level of glucose in the bloodstream.

Campbell called an ambulance, and they soon returned her mother to normal.

Miahann might have saved Gipe’s life — if she hadn’t disobeyed, Campbell would have walked out the door without knowing her mother’s dire condition.

“I would have left and gone to work and not come back until 1:30 (p.m.),” Campbell said.

Miahann had bounced around her family for several years before Campbell became her owner two years ago.

She was never happier about it than she was Thursday.

“For her to do that with no training,” Campbell said, “I thought was amazing.”