Shelter dog saves teen from attack by registered sexual offender
St. Petersburg, Florida -- A St. Petersburg dog is being called a hero for helping to save a 17-year-old girl from an attack. The teen was volunteering for the Friends of Strays animal shelter on a Saturday afternoon, a few weeks ago.
As she walked down a path behind the building with Mabeline, a Rhodesian Ridgeback mix, the girl was attacked. County deputies say Michael Bacon, a registered sexual predator, chased her down, grabbed her by the hair, then pinned her down.
The teen couldn't get loose, but the 38-pound dog did, scaring the attacker off, and allowing the girl to escape.
"To see something like that happen, it's just unfathomable," said Donna Thomas, from Friends of Strays, adding they've never had any problems before. "...a dog, its bark, its growl, and defending its owner, is always a deterrent."
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http://www.wtsp.com/news/reporter/article/246489/79/Dog-saves-St-Pete-teenager-from-attack
Yay Mabeline!
Sentences should be much longer for repeat offenders. They can't be cured. In addition,if they are released, they are the parolees that should be given top priority. These are the criminals who should be filling the jails instead of drug users.
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The story says she has since been adopted. May she live very happily ever after.
Julie
Just keep her away from Romney. 
A neighbor's purebred lab, easily 125 pounds, entered my pasture and approached my barn a couple years ago. My big rescue lab-cross, Jake, ran around barking and wagging his tail. Little Luna, an older puppy at about 40 pounds at the time, ran for his life up toward the house, baying at the top of his lungs.
Luna stopped at the top of the hill near our house and looked back. He saw me approach Homer and call his name with my hand extended. Homer dropped his hind quarters, growled and started to lunge for me. Before he got far off the ground, a shrieking yellow blur came barreling back down the hill, through the gate and hurtled towards Homer's throat. Luna ran him across the pasture and off my property and into the woods, and then ran back and forth on our side of the boundary wall between our properties, shrieking the whole time.
Rescue dogs are the best. Rhodesian Ridgebacks are wonderful, wonderful dogs, and protective of their family pack. Playful, high energy, very athletic.
I pulled Luna from death row in Georgia when he was roughly 7 months old. He came to me so terrified he had to be carried across the parking lot, carried into our house. At night he would crouch in the back of his crate, watching Jake and me lying in bed. It was weeks before he gathered the courage to join us. He'd been hit in the head, so would crouch down in fear anytime anything accidentally swung toward his head. He would hide under the dining room table whenever I took the broom out to sweep the kitchen. He understood not to pee or poop in the house, but would get so anxious and afraid that he'd lose control in front of the door while I was slipping into my shoes to take him out. And he was very afraid of men.
Now he has no particular fears, is a wonderful alarm, a wonderful snugglebug and a bouncing bean when he plays. He is learning not to freak out if strange dogs approach us when we are walking. (Actually, he's learned to come looking for a cookie when strange dogs appear on our walks
)
I love my rhodie!!!!!
