Six-month-old Alexander from Shepton Mallet in Somerset suddenly became restless and looked unwell. His mother, Kim Reynolds, hurried to the emergency department of the Royal Bournemouth Hospital, where doctors found that the baby's heart was beating at 280 beats per minute.
It all began in the morning, when the family's Doberman, Saraya, behaved unusually: she would not leave the child's side for a single step and whined pitifully every time he was carried out of the room. Kim, a former canine hydrotherapist and a first-time mother, did not attach much importance to it at first, but the dog's behaviour would not let her rest.
Saraya is an ordinary family dog, not trained for medical assistance. Nevertheless, she persistently signalled a problem that people had not noticed. Later, doctors diagnosed Alexander with Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome — a congenital disorder of the heart's conduction system in which electrical impulses travel along accessory pathways and cause attacks of tachycardia.
To normalise the rhythm, doctors twice immersed the baby in a bucket of ice-cold water, but this did not help. Only after three doses of an intravenous medication did the heart rate come down. Alexander was transferred to Poole Hospital, where he spent two nights. Now he takes the beta-blocker propranolol daily through a syringe — and does so without fuss.
Kim is certain that it was Saraya's intuition that made her seek help in time. "She knew his heart was beating too fast," the mother says. "I cannot even imagine what might have happened if I had simply put him in his cot and walked away." Recently Saraya again began behaving restlessly near Alexander — and this time the baby turned out to have bacterial tonsillitis.
The family is now raising funds for the charity Tiny Tickers, which helps with the early detection of heart disease in infants. Kim stresses: "I trust Saraya one hundred percent. She is not a trained assistance dog, but she will always be by his side."
The story shows how keenly dogs perceive changes in the condition of those close to them, even when those changes are invisible to the eye.
