Feel Good Friday

Hey guys!

Whoo hoo! We made it! I hope that you all are having a tremendous Friday! As Rihanna says, “Cheers to the freaken’ weekend. I drink to that, yeah-e-yeah.”

Do you have any fun plans? I am going to be so busy doing nothing…I can’t wait! Well, nothing seems like a strong word to use here. I have, after all, plans to dive head first into an epic Seinfeld marathon, season 1 all the way to season 9, breaking only to eat, drink, and eat some more–with all that laughing taking place, a girl’s got to keep her strength up and stay well hydrated. I also am looking forward to tackling a couple of books I recently Nooked on my Nook. Ahhh…how I love the weekends!

As a pre-cursor to which hopefully will be a great one for you as well, I thought I’d share a feel-good story that will warm your heart to pieces and send you off with a smile. I came across this story last night while watching MSNBC News and it had me blubbering like a whale, but blubbering in a good way.

On Tuesday night, seventeen year old Dwight Borchardt returned to his home in Wausau, WI (quick side note: my home town made national news!!) after walking one of his dogs to see piles of smoke coming from his second-story window.  He was the only one home at the time but his two cats and other dog, a yellow lab named Coda, were still stranded amongst the flames inside. Frantic and scared, Borchardt attempted to search for the missing pets but was overtaken by the heavy smoke. Once the firefighters arrived, they went into the house to try to put out the flames. Inside, they found a scared and Coda curled up on a rocking chair in the room where the fire supposedly started. The two men carried the oh so cute pooch to safety where they (and this is where I grabbed the Kleenex) performed mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. They also poured water over his soot-covered snout and used an oxygen mask to try to revive the animal.

Firefighters Jared Thompson and Jamie Giese rush pet Coda to safety

Wausau firefighters Jared Thompson and Jamie Giese give artificial respiration to a dog that was rescued from a house fire

Coda gets a big smooch from one of his owners, Kim Carlson

The heroes’ quick thinking paid off; Coda was taken to the local vet to get checked on and was free to go home after only two days, fully recovered. After the incident happened, firefighter Jamie Geise admitted that his heroic acts were all improvised, drawing upon what he had learned from watching past episodes of the former reality TV show Rescue 9-1-1.

What an incredible story! Doesn’t it just make your heart melt a little bit? Not only were these men brave, but they went out of their way to save these animals, doing everything they could to keep this family intact, four-legged or otherwise. And the best part of this story was that is had a happy ending…the Borchardt family’s home only maintained minimal damage and the two remaining pets, cats Lavendar and Mocha were found safe and well in the basement. All I could think of when seeing this was what I would do if my pup Thunder got caught in a fire like this. There is no doubt in my mind that I would risk my life to save his, or any other pup for that matter. They really are more than just animals; they are family, they are friends, they are confidants and life-savers. I know that Thunder would do the same for me (albeit the mouth-to-mouth part of course although I think he totally would if he could) and I, him.

You can check the story out here: http://photoblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/10/19/8390502-dog-rescued-from-house-fire-in-wisconsin

On that note, I hope everyone has a great weekend! 🙂