Jackie Bernard almost came to a stop when she turned off West Shore Road. She had the window down.

“Don’t you dare,” she commanded. I looked over from the passenger seat but didn’t see anything. She took her foot off the brake and we carried on.

“What was that about?” I asked.

“He was about to cross the road,” Jackie said of the squirrel that I hadn’t seen.

Since Jackie has helped relieve Carol from driving me to work and appointments, I’ve gotten to admire her love of animals and saving them from dire situations even to the point of disrupting her Christmas day. She found an injured squirrel in her driveway, which she believes had been in a fight with another squirrel. She called animal shelters and veterinarians to no avail. It was Christmas, but she wasn’t going to give up. Finally, she learned of a woman in Providence who rescued animals.  They connected and Jackie drove to Providence. That’s commitment.

Jackie, who served as an electronics technician in the Navy, lives in Warwick with her cat and dog.  When she moved back to Rhode Island from Mississippi, Hans, a bluetick coonhound came with her. Hans was apparently not like the rest of the litter. He had dwarfism with short legs, which Jackie assumes made him undesirable for hunting. He was turned lose to roam.

A friend of Jackie’s found a group of boys beating the dog with sticks and intervened. She took the dog to Jackie. Jackie didn’t waste any time. She named the dog Hans and took him to a vet to be checked out and for a full range of shots.

In the waiting room an elderly gentleman spotted the dog and offered $200 for it.

“He’s staying with me,” she told him. That was a good move for Hans and for her. She saved his life and he saved hers.

“I had him a long time,” she said guessing it was 14 years before she had to put him down because of spinal deterioration.

In Mississippi Jackie lived in a house on a two acre lot with plenty of room for Hans and her four other dogs. The gang got along with Hans and knew to leave him alone when it came to his food and water.

Jackie recalls a welt and thinking she had been bitten by bee. Knowing what she knows now she suspects it was a tick, because in the days that followed she developed a fever, headaches and felt queasy. She toughed it out for a few weeks and finally visited a clinic. They put her through a battery of tests including a spinal tap, but failed to come up with a diagnosis. Her friend brought her home offering to stay. But being independent, as she is, Jackie said she was okay.

Once at home, however, she started to lose her vision and became disoriented. She blacked out.

When she came around she was lying face down on the floor. There was blood. Hans was pacing back and forth. The other dogs cowered in a corner.  Jackie surmised what had happened and headed to the bathroom to clean up. There she passed out a second time striking her head on the tub and leaving her a gash.

As she regained consciousness she felt heavy compression to her chest. She couldn’t imagine what was happening. Hans was licking her face.

“He had massive paws, like paddles,” Jackie said. He was rocking back and forth on her chest. Hans had come to the rescue.

Jackie cleaned up again, wrapping a blood-soaked bandage around her head. She didn’t call 911, but drove to the hospital, stopping for gas on the way. The station attendant offered to call an ambulance, but Jackie declined. When she arrived at the ER, she didn’t have to wait.

There was no doubt Hans would be coming with her when she returned to the Ocean State. Hans loved the outdoors, but being a southern boy, he never had encountered snow. He loved it until one day it reached above his stubby legs.

Jackie wasted no time when she heard a yelping from the yard. She rushed out. Hans looked fine but she knew something was wrong.

“Poor thing, his wanker was frozen,” she said describing a ball of frozen snow around his privates. She held him and wrapped a scarf around his waist.  “As soon as he got warm in that area he was okay.”

Hans still loved the snow.

“Really?” I asked

“When he made a trail it was footprints and one line down the road,” Jackie answered.

When we got to the office we were still laughing. Jackie was teary.

That’s what happens when we remember our canine friends. They are great companions and, as Jackie knows, can be life savers.